


My Heart's at the Wheel Now

by peacefulboo



Series: Heart's at the Wheel [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Kid Fic, Post Sochi AU, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-05-09 03:39:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14708405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefulboo/pseuds/peacefulboo
Summary: When Tessa gets pregnant after a one night stand with a Swedish skier in the aftermath of Sochi, she keeps her mouth shut, her head down, and her heart guarded. She needs some damn time to figure out what she wants and needs and there are so many decisions to make. Still, she can only delay for so long.She just didn't expect losing her partner would be part of the fallout.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been so much fun to pull together. I usually play a little more coy with my storylines but since I'm new in this fandom I'll just say it straight up, it's a fucking journey, y'all, but it ends with our faves together so I hope you enjoy the ride. 
> 
> You should get an update every week or so until it's complete.

February 22, 2014 - Sochi, Russia

His hands are large and a little rough, probably from too much time in sub-freezing temps and not enough moisturizer, but they feel amazing as he grasps her hips and pulls her into him. His lips and teeth chase his hot breath across her neck and chest and all she can think is, “I need more and I need it right now.”

She’s drunk enough to let go, but not drunk enough to go numb, which is exactly where she wants to be. Her plan for Sochi was to be present and take in every moment, and fuck if this isn’t a part of exactly what she means. 

In Vancouver, Tessa was in too much pain and too committed to being Canada’s sweetheart to let loose after they won. But this isn’t Vancouver and Tessa is relatively pain free and unattached and this time she wants the full Olympic experience, completely with a bathroom fuck with a virtual stranger who is hot and tall and hard as hell in her hands. She grins when he groans and sighs when he fucks into her and if she uses her own fingers to get herself over the edge a few moments before he pulls out and finishes himself across her belly she’s very okay with that. 

They clean up hastily -- why does sex have to be so damn messy? -- and both leave more relaxed than they started. She pulls out her phone to set a reminder to talk to the team medic the next day about Plan B, but Andrew calls her over to the table some of the team has gathered around and she slips her phone back into her pocket. 

“Did you just get laid?” Scott asks in her ear when she settles in beside him on a bench and takes the beer he offers her. 

“Yes sir,” she admits, unable to suppress her post orgasmic buzz. 

Scott snorts and clinks his bottle against hers. “Cheers, darlin’,” is all he says. Her whole body has relaxed and her exhaustion seeps out through her bones as she rests her head against Scott’s shoulder, letting the alcohol and the din of the room lull her into a light doze. 

***

Japan is a whirlwind of cherry blossoms and screaming fans. She’s tired most of the trip, but they’re coming off an Olympic quad and a dizzying media blitz in the days after the Olympics so her low energy is completely expected. She sleeps as much as she can manage but still takes in the sights of the cities they get to visit during their short tour. She looks around at the cast and can’t help but feel extremely alone. She and Scott spend a lot of time together, but in silence. Their ability to communicate openly and freely has always ebbed and flowed with their circumstances and at the moment neither seemed particularly motivated to say much of anything. 

Tessa’s almost afraid that if she starts a conversation, a real conversation with him, that everything will come crashing down around them. 

When they get back to Canada, Tessa sleeps for a day and would like to sleep for the other two relatively free days she has before having to fly to Halifax but she has errands to run and family to see. She set up an appointment with her gynecologist months ago when she knew what her schedule would be, but the last thing she wants to do is go in for a pap. She’s used to being poked and prodded by doctors, but she’s never going to look forward to a speculum up her vagina. 

It’s not until she has the clipboard with the pre-appointment questionnaire in her hands that she remembers. Daniel, the fairly hot, tall, Swedish skier with the rough hands, hadn’t used a condom. And Tessa hadn’t met with the medic to procure doses of the morning after pill. She quickly checks off the box indicating she has indeed had unprotected sex in the last six months and sighs when she realizes she’s going to have a complete STI work-up done. Yay. 

She puts in the dates for her last known menstrual period, checks the box that says her flow was lighter than normal on that date, fills in the blanks on all of the other various intrusive questions asked, then settles in to wait for the nurse to call her back. When it’s her turn, she endures the indignity of giving two urine samples, an act she’s used to from sport and right now she’s just grateful no one needs to actually watch her pee in the cup since it’s not a doping screening. She places her sample cups on the waiting tray, heads into the exam room and changes into the scratchy gown, the open part facing front, but wrapped so she’s not exposed in the cold room. 

As usual, it takes the doctor a ridiculous amount of time to knock on the door and let herself in. The energy in the room changes pretty much immediately when Dr. Widdiuk sits on the rolling chair and faces Tessa. 

***

Turns out her period was probably not a period after all but something called implantation bleeding because hot, tall Swedish Daniel is bad at pulling out. 

Pregnant. 

She sinks down onto her white couch and stares out the window. It’s a windy day and the trees are just starting to bud since it’s been a little warmer than normal. They’re expecting another freeze tonight so who knows if any of that progress will survive. 

She stares out that window for a long time, absently watching as the weak sunlight shifts across the trees and time passes. She thinks about what she still needs to pack for the Canadian leg of this tour, and what laundry she still needs to get done. She thinks about how she has an appointment with her physio at 9:00am the next morning and how her mom wants to go get lunch afterwards. She thinks about what she knows about dissociative states from her undergrad classes and realizes that she’s probably found herself in one, but doesn’t give it more than a fleeting thought before she reaches in front of her to grab the water bottle she carries with her everywhere and takes a drink from it. 

When the sun has set and she can see nothing but inky darkness through her window, Tessa gets up and starts the laundry she should have done hours ago. 

***

 

“This number is so fucking weird,” Scott tells her as she makes her way to the boards after she, Joannie, Kaitlyn and Kaetlyn make their way off the ice. 

“I kind of like it,” she answers, looking past him at the stadium seats. 

She can feel him giving her an incredulous look and shrugs. They’re tweaking the Creep number a little for this tour. It’s a weird modern dance piece where they dress in 80’s aerobic gear and tutus and dance like lethargic zombies from the set of Flashdance. She hates it, but there’s something intriguing and unsettling about it that suits her. 

They’re silent for a few moments, leaning against the boards, and she’s lost in her quiet, thoughtless headspace when she feels his hand on her cheek. “Tessa?”

She looks up at him startled, then squeezes her eyes shut tight so he can’t look into them. “Yeah?” she ask, eyes still closed. 

“You okay?” he asks and the sincerity in his voice hooks her around the spine and makes her want to tell him everything. 

She doesn’t. 

“Yep. I’m okay,” she answers. 

Scott gives her a frustrated but fond half smile and sighs. “No you’re not.” 

Tessa looks him right in the eye and holds his stare for a minute. She can feel him searching for answers in her face and does her best to project a serenely blank wall back at him. She doesn’t want to lie to him, but she cannot let the truth out right now. It’s too overwhelming and there are so many decisions she needs to make and the knowledge that it will change everything the second she says it out loud, particularly the second she says it out loud to _him_ is too much to take on right now. They have 20 days of their Canadian tour and then she’s home free for a while. Tessa knows she needs to give him something, though. 

“When there’s something to tell you, I will,” she whispers, squeezing his hand in an attempt to assure him. And then Jeffery’s calling her back to the group to skate and she can put all thoughts of her pregnancy and Scott’s concern and her wide, wide open future back in its tiny box that she keeps it in the back of her mind and out of the way.

***

 

Dr. Widdiuk had said that since she was still essentially in Olympic shape, she can keep skating. She told her the things she needs to be looking out for: dizziness, excessive fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, looser than normal joints, etc., and reassured her that, for now, the fetus is low enough in her pelvis and will likely be cushioned if she falls or takes a minor body blow to her abdomen. There are no guarantees but it’s not as risky as some assume.

Tessa is lucky. If she didn’t have a printout that says in teeny, tiny letters, that she is pregnant, she wouldn’t have a clue. She feels tired, but it’s tour, so she’s always tired. She only cuts back half-way on the caffeine and the other members of the cast and crew seem to be respecting her choice to spend this tour dry, even as the give her strange looks when she passes on her favorite wine. 

Scott, on the other hand, has chosen to live it up this tour. Other than their time on the ice, she doesn’t see him much. She hears stories of his escapades from the rest of the cast and crew when they’re warming up or eating lunch, and if she’s a little concerned about how extreme he’s being in their off time, she doesn’t have the energy capacity to worry too much about him. He’s a grown man who will make his own choices. A grown man who has fully earned those choices. That he still manages to make it to rehearsals on time and not completely wrecked, is a miracle, and one she’s profoundly grateful for. 

They’re in Ottawa tonight and rehearsal goes well. The show isn’t till tomorrow so they have the night off and Kaetlyn and Scott tag-team her into going out to dinner with the rest of the cast. She’s quiet most of the night, watching the other patrons more than paying attention to her friends. There’s a dance floor and she dances with each of the guys once, and with Kaitlyn once and notices that Scott is getting hot and heavy with a gorgeous woman. He brings her over when he comes to grab his drink and Tessa raises her eyebrow at him. He grins back at her, his eyes already glazed over a bit with alcohol. 

As Scott stands to lead the woman out of the restaurant and back to their hotel, Tessa slips in a hug, and shoves a couple of condoms in his back pocket. “Be sure to wrap it up, buddy,” she tells him in a low voice, forcing a laugh at his shocked look. He lets out a surprised guffaw of his own, salutes Tess in answer saying, “Sure thing.” Then he guides the woman out the door. 

“You sure you don’t want a drink,” Jeffery asks as she gathers her purse and settles her tab.

“I would love a drink, but I’ll pass tonight, thanks,” she answers honestly before heading back to the hotel herself. 

***

Tour is a whirlwind of exhaustion, exhilaration, and sweat. A low grade nausea kicks in and hangs around the whole back half of their 20 day stretch and Tessa’s pretty sure that’s more about nerves than hormone changes, but what does she know? 

It’s during the Edmonton show that she almost vomits on the ice during Into the Mystic. It’s a relatively easy program, beautiful and peaceful, and she enjoys it a lot -- it’s become her favorite part of this tour. Something happens on the last lift as she’s twisting around Scott’s back, that leaves her swallowing down bile and doing her best to muscle through the rest of the program. The remainder of the show is absolutely miserable; she throws up twice in between numbers and spends most of the meet and greet afterwards propped up by Scott and Kaitlyn, as the other cast members keep sneaking her concerned looks. Scott has to practically carry her to her hotel room and it’s not till he’s set her on the bed and is wiping tears from her cheeks that she’s even aware that she’s crying. 

“Are you in pain?” he asks again for the hundredth time since she rushed off the ice after Into the Mystic.

“No,” she answers again. 

“Your abdomen is super ridgid, Tessa,” he tells her with a pointed look. The problem with having their hands all over each other for 17 years is that he’s always been aware of any embarrassing changes in her body. 

“I promise you, I will tell you if I have any pain,” she reassures him, doing her best to keep her voice steady. 

“You haven’t been telling me shit the last month, Tessa,” he counters, his voice low and while his words are harsh, his tone is gentle and honest. 

“I need to sleep. The medic gave me some Zofran and it’s gonna knock me out any second,” is her only answer. 

What she needs to do is talk to her mom. She’s half tempted to set up a flight for her mom right now, but she knows Kate has commitments this weekend so she resolves to have one of the hardest conversations she’ll likely ever have with her over the phone. Tomorrow morning. 

“Do you need me to stay? I’ll stay,” he says. 

“No, Scott. I’m gonna be asleep. The meds will kick in and I’ll be fine.” She has no idea if she’ll be fine, but the realization that her little bubble is about to be popped and her time to make decisions and come to terms with her reality is up, has crept into her throat and is choking her. Denial is not an option anymore. Still, Tessa is much too professional to let the last two shows go down like tonight’s did.

“Thank you. For tonight.” She doesn’t look at him when she says it. 

“No problem, Kiddo,” he says with a kiss to her forehead which she’s pretty sure is sweaty and gross. “Call me if you need anything, yeah?”

“I’ll be fine. Kaitlyn will be back soon,” she answers. 

She knows if she were looking at him she’d see the hurt that she hadn’t agreed to his request, so she doesn’t look. 

“Feel better,” he murmurs as he leaves the room, the door latching behind him. 

It only takes Tessa a few more minutes before she falls into a dreamless sleep. 

***

Her mother is silent for a few moments and Tessa wishes she had used Facetime instead of making a phone call. 

“Are you okay, honey?” her mom finally asks, her voice sure and steady in Tessa’s ear. 

“I’ve been feeling pretty well until last night, and even then it was just vomiting and nausea,” Tessa reassures her mother. “I don’t even know if it has to do with all of this, or if I just ate something bad.”

“How far along is the pregnancy?” Her mother is amazing and takes her cues, calling it the pregnancy instead of the baby. Tessa isn’t ready yet to call it a baby...honestly isn’t sure when or if she ever will. 

“It’ll be the second trimester in a few days,” Tessa admits, a little bit of unease and shame trickling along her scalp and down her spine. She really has been burying her head in the sand since she found out. 

“Oh Tessa,” her mother sighs out. “Who knows?”

“The doctor. You.”

“You haven’t told Scott?” Her mother asks, not quite managing to keep the incredulousness out of her voice. 

“No. Why would I tell him before you?” Tessa asks, genuinely thrown off by the idea that she’d tell Scott before her mom. 

“Tessa.” Her mom’s voice holds a touch of reprimand this time and Tessa has to fight not to shut down. 

“Mother, Scott Moir did not get me pregnant, so he doesn’t get to know before you do,” she replies, answering the question her mother hasn’t quite asked yet. 

“Okay. But that man holds your safety in his hands every night and takes that job incredibly seriously. He should probably have all the information.”

“Mom. No. He doesn’t get to know this yet. He’s taking care of me just as well as he ever has. I don’t need anything special from him right now.” The thing is, Tessa honestly believes this. Scott hasn’t been careless with her safety in over a decade. Their Stars on Ice programs are easy and simple, comparatively speaking, and there are only two shows left of this tour. She knows if she keeps the pregnancy, she needs to have a conversation with Scott, that they’ll need to cancel the rest of the tours they’ve committed to for the year (which makes Tessa so angry with herself). 

If she keeps the pregnancy. 

“Tessa,” her mother says again. It’s amazing just how much her mom can fit into two syllables. 

“I don’t even know, mom...” Tessa starts but can’t find the words to finish. 

“What are you thinking?” her mom asks, voice back to being steady and sure and as neutral as a mother can be. 

This is the part of the conversation she’s been dreading. 

“I’m thinking that I barely know the first name of the man I slept with, but he’s Swedish and a skier so I should be able to track him down if I need to.” She pauses for a few deep breaths and allows herself to really think about the situation for once, allows all the fears and uncertainty and hopes and wishes start creeping in. “I’m thinking that I’m done with competition and it wouldn’t be the worst time to do this. I’m thinking that I never, ever thought this would be a choice I needed to make.”

“Are you leaning one way or the other?” Kate asks. 

Tessa takes a few moments to really think about her answer. “I gave up alcohol and cut my caffeine intake by half, so yeah.” Tessa admits. She inhales deeply and lets all the air out in a rush. 

“Let's put a pin in that for a second,” Kate suggests, her voice still neutral. “If you had an abortion, there wouldn’t be any shame in that, you know that, right?” 

“Oh mom, I know. I know plenty of athletes who made that choice and I get it. Any other point in my career and I’d be making it too.” Tessa knows that to be true. She’s had one other pregnancy scare during her career and there was no doubt in her mind when she was waiting for that pregnancy test, that she’d have chosen to terminate the pregnancy. It was a false alarm. That time. 

“What has really changed?” 

“I just keep thinking about how I decided this would be the year of yes,” Tessa answers. It’s a trite answer and not nearly enough, but there is truth in it. 

“I don’t think this is what you had in mind,” Kate says a touch of laughter in her voice. 

“No it’s not. But it’s what I’ve got and I just wonder if this is going to be my chance,” Tessa says quietly. She didn’t think she wanted to be a mom for most of her life. She’s not particularly maternal, though she’s not bad with kids. She just never thought she’d get to a point where she would feel settled enough to have a kid. And she’s not settled at all now. So why is she making the choice she’s making?

“Tessa, your life is completely changing as it is. Are you sure you want to have a baby in the middle of all of this change?” Kate asks, and Tessa knows that she’s doing her best to get her daughter to talk through all the angles of her decision. 

“I am scared, Mom. I’m terrified that I’ll be so bad at this and that I’ll mess this kid up for life. I’m worried about what happens if Daniel doesn’t want to be in their life and even more worried about what I’ll do if he _does_ want to be in their life. I’m scared of what I’ll have to say no to because I’m saying yes to this,” Tessa tells her mom as honestly as possible. 

“Well you’ll have to talk to this Daniel soon,” Kate answers, leaving the rest of her questions unvoiced for now. 

“I’m not looking forward to that at all,” Tessa admits. 

“I’d imagine you aren’t.”

“And you need to tell Scott,” Kate says her tone brooking no argument. 

“Not until we’re home,” Tessa replies. ‘Cause she can’t do it in the middle of tour. Five more days, two more shows; he can wait till they’re home and have slept for a few days. 

“I don’t agree, but given that you only have a few more shows left, I guess I’ll trust you on this,” Kate partially acquiesces. 

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Tessa asks.

“Not a soul,” Kate replies, and she means it. 

There’s a long moment of silence where Tessa gets lost in thought and Kate patiently waits for Tessa to come back to the conversation.

“Mom,” Tessa starts. 

“Yes, baby,” Kate answers, knowing that Tessa needs her comforting mom now, not her logical one. 

“I’m having a baby,” Tessa replies, unable to keep the wonder out of her voice. It overwhelms her for the first time. She’s gonna have a child. Like an actual living, breathing kid. 

Kate chuckles at the sense of awe she hears in Tessa’s voice, “Yes you are.”

***

Despite the sense of wonder she had at the end of her phone call with her mom, Tessa locks it all back down and pushes through the rest of the tour. She doesn’t get sick again but she notes that Scott keeps looking at her strangely and she’s glad when he doesn’t follow up the looks with questions. 

The last two shows go off without a hitch and she’s sighing in relief when the plane touches down in London.

She takes a few extra days before asking Scott to come to dinner at her place. He offers to pick up the take-out and she agrees, feeling a bit like a bad hostess, but it’s just Scott. 

“Hi,” she greets him at the door, her voice high and reedy as the nerves take over. 

He gives her a kiss on the cheek and a weirded out look as he brushes past her into the house. He takes off his shoes and jacket like he always does and she asks him how his family is as they dish the food out. 

“You gonna tell me what’s going on?” Scott asks once they’ve been eating for a few minutes. 

“I’m pregnant,” she blurts out. Well that’s one way to do it. 

He stares her dead in the face for a few beats with no expression. Then confusion and hurt and something else flicker in his eyes before he schools his features and asks, “How long have you known.”

“A few weeks,” she answers, forcing herself to hold his gaze. 

“What the fuck Tessa! You’re pregnant and you didn’t tell me? I could have hurt you.” he sounds more angry and hurt than she’d expected. Damn. “I could have dropped you.”

“When have you ever dropped me?” she asks, just a little incredulous. She is never safer than when this man in front of her is holding onto her. She believes that with every part of her. Why is he questioning it now?

“Tessa, you’re pregnant.”

“Yes. I know.” 

“And you thought I wouldn’t want to know that the woman I’m lifting into the air and spinning with and manhandling has a baby inside her?” he asks, bewilderment coloring every word. 

“It didn’t change anything. The fetus is still in my pelvis. Perfectly safe and unaware.”

“Fetus? Are we calling it a fetus still?” he asked, switching gears for a second. “Are you planning to stay pregnant?”

“I mean, it _is_ a fetus. But yes, I’m planning on keeping the baby,” she admits. The hope in her voice catches her off guard and it must catch Scott off guard as well because his posture softens and his lips curl up a touch at the end. 

“You’re having a baby,” he states. 

“Yeah,” she replies, smiling about it for the first time. She’s so distracted by feeling happy about it that she almost misses how quickly his face closes off and his posture straightens. Almost.

“Wow.” He sound so hollow all of the sudden that every hair on Tessa’s body stands on end. “Congratulations.”

“Scott?”

“I’m happy for you, Kiddo.” He doesn’t sound happy. He sounds devastated. “I should probably go.” He stands and heads for the table where his jacket and keys are resting.

“Scott. No.” She raises her voice just enough to stop him in his tracks. But he doesn’t turn to look at her. “I know it’s a lot. I know I just changed all of our plans for the year and I’m so sorry for that...” 

She can see him close his eyes and swallow and knows she should probably let him go and process the information in his own way. 

“For the year, Tessa? You’re not wrong.” He runs his hands through his hair and sighs. “I just wish I had known.” He makes a weak attempt at a smile. It’s completely unsuccessful. 

“I didn’t know what I was going to do and I needed time to process it all and I didn’t want you to do anything different,” she says. 

“I get that, I do,” he says. “But I should go.” His smile is a little more sincere this time. 

“I’ll call AOI and the others and let them know we have to cancel,” she tells him as he pulls on his jacket and heads out the door. 

“Okay,” he agrees, his face unreadable again. 

She grabs his hand and pulls him to her for a hug. “I’m sorry.” She isn’t entirely sure what she’s sorry for, though. 

“You’re having a baby, Tessa. That’s amazing. You don’t apologize for that.” He sounds so sincere but she can’t shake the feeling that she just dropped a bomb in their lives and nothing is going to be the same again.


	2. Chapter 2

They make it through their next few obligations with little communication. Scott is kind and caring. He’s gentle with her in a way he hasn’t been in years, but he doesn’t talk to her. Tessa has known all along that it would knock him for a loop, so she doesn’t begrudge him the time he needs.

Tessa cancels most of her appearances for the back half of the year. This includes her welcome back to Canada/retirement party that her friends have been planning for the last ten months. She can’t drink and she’s having such a hard time getting out of her head that she knows there’s no way she can get away with trying to lie to her closest friends, even in that chaotic of a setting. 

She invites her three closest girlfriends over and tells them about her pregnancy. They’re shocked, but kind. She doesn’t have many details to give them and only tells them that it happened at the Olympics with a skier from another country and she doesn’t think he’ll be in the picture. She asks them about how their lives are going and lets them take over the conversation for the rest of the night. As they leave, they make tentative plans to get brunch in a few weeks, and Midori offers to go shopping for maternity clothes with her when she’s ready. She also tells her that they’ll try and have a shower for her before the baby comes but Tess tenses so quickly that she immediately backs off and tells her they’ll only do it when Tessa wants to. 

Tessa isn’t sure she’ll ever want to. 

She knows that Kate didn’t start to show with Tessa’s oldest brother until late in her second trimester, so Tessa’s not that worried about people knowing about the pregnancy anytime soon, but she and her mom talk it through and decided that it’s better to keep a low profile. 

Morality in sports is a funny, harsh thing and Tessa knows there will be backlash to her pregnancy. She knows that there are plenty of people who will think she’s a slut or whore and that there will be plenty of others who insist that the baby is Scott’s. She wants to put that off as long as possible and part of that is relinquishing her role as a media darling, as one half of Canada’s sweethearts. 

She had planned to head Western and finish up her degree but the baby is due a few weeks before fall term will be over, so going back to school in September would be very difficult. She ends up researching different programs where she can finish her bachelors online. She’s able to work out an accelerated program with a reputable university that’s willing to work with her and while it’s not the university experience she was hoping for, she’s grateful that she should be able to be done by the time the baby comes. 

She pours herself into her studies with a laser focus. She still runs everyday and does Pilates several times a week. She even skates (alone, which is always so, so weird) for a few hours a few times a week, but every other bit of herself is dedicated to finishing her degree. 

It’s one of the loneliest periods of her life. 

***

Her conversation with Daniel is awkward and sad. He’s stunned to say the least and asks that she give him a little time to figure out how he wants to handle the situation. He only takes a week and in the end chooses to give up all rights to the child. 

She cries for two days, half out of grief for her baby not knowing their father, and half out of relief that she doesn’t have to try and forge any type of relationship with him. Her lawyer works up some preliminary paperwork, warning her that it’s not completely foolproof given the international nature of the relationship and the different laws on paternity in Sweden and Canada, but assures her that it will be a huge benefit if Daniel changes his mind some time in the future. 

Tessa isn’t too worried, though. She’s seen fathers abandon children they’ve known and supposedly loved for decades, it’s not too surprising to her that some men could choose to abandon a child before they even meet them. 

***  
She spends Canada Day with her immediate family at her mother’s house. It’s warm and sunny and Tessa realizes it’s just nice to be around actual people for awhile. 

It’s also nice to spend time with Casey and Megan before they have their own baby. Megan is 40 weeks along and frankly looks completely done. Beautiful, but done. 

“How’re you holding up,” Tessa asks. They’re sitting side-by-side on a cushioned glider, each enjoying the breeze and each other’s company. 

“I’m tired, of course, but I’m mostly just anxious to meet her,” Megan answers as she rubs a weary hand over her baby belly. “We’re hoping we don’t have to induce, but at this point I don’t think I’d mind it if the doctor called me up and said it’s time. I would love to not be pregnant anymore.” Megan smiles but it’s weary and anxious. 

“Hopefully it doesn’t come to forced eviction,” Tessa replies with a teasing smile. 

“How are you feeling about your little one?” Megan asks, though she keeps her eyes out on the horizon. The sunset is a gorgeous pink and purple with edges of orange and neither of them take their eyes off of it. 

Tessa places a hand on her own belly. Her waist has barely begun to thicken even though she’s just about halfway to her due date and Tessa is struck by how easy it is to ignore her impending motherhood when she’s alone so much of the time. As she has watched Casey and Megan today she can’t help but be so happy that they have each other as they push forward toward raising a kid together. Happy, for them in a way that highlights the lonely ache inside of her. Tessa shakes her head and gives her sister-in-law a weak smile and a shrug. “I’m taking it a day at a time.”

“That’s a perfectly valid life choice,” Megan replies with a pointed nod and a long drink to finish off the last of her lemonade. 

Tessa has always liked Megan. She’s calm and steady and always kind. She’s funny in an easy way, which is a perfect foil for her brother’s super dry sense of humor. And she knows how to read a room better than almost anyone Tessa knows. It’s a great combination and Tessa hopes that she’ll get a chance to know Megan better over the coming years. 

“I’m gonna go get more to drink,” Tessa says as she stands from the glider. “Want me to bring you a refill?” She holds out her hand for Megan’s cup. 

“Please,” Megan answers

Tessa finds Casey and Kevin sitting at the kitchen counter talking with Kate. 

“How’s she doing?” Casey asks once he notices his sister has come inside with two glasses. Tessa figures it’s not easy for him to give his wife space these days. 

“She’s a trooper,” Tessa answers with a soft smile. 

Casey sighs deeply and Tessa can see just how dark the circles are under his eyes. 

Kate takes the glasses from Tessa and fills them up before heading out with Megan’s drink to keep her daughter-in-law company. 

“I can’t believe you’re going to be a dad. Like, any day now,” Tessa tells Casey with some combination of disbelief and awe. 

“I can’t believe you’re both going to be parents,” Kevin adds as he looks between two of his siblings and shakes his head. 

“It’s fucking weird,” Casey admits. 

Tessa laughs in response. He’s not wrong. 

“I’m glad she has you,” Tessa tells Casey, sincerely. She manages to mostly keep her wistfulness at bay when she says it. Mostly. 

“There’s no one I’d rather raise a kid with,” Casey replies with conviction. “She’s going to be a great mom.”

“Your kid is so lucky to have you two as parents,” Tessa says as she squeezes Casey’s shoulder and kisses his cheek. She can feel the tears start to prickle in the corners of her eyes and takes in a shuddering breath to steady herself. She is not going to cry in front of her brothers. 

At this Kevin rolls his eyes and throws a crumpled napkin at the back of Tessa’s head. “Yes, yes, you’re both going to be amazing parents, your kids are going to be the best, we all love each other very much.”

Tessa scoffs in mock offense but is glad for how deftly Kevin diffused the heaviness in the air. 

They all only stay another hour or so and as they’re heading out, Tessa hugs Megan gently, “I have a good feeling the next time I see you this kid is gonna have made her debut.”

“From your mouth to God’s ears, as they say,” Megan replies. Tessa can see the tension in her face and wonders if she’s in pain or if she’s just tired. With one last squeeze she turns to Casey and reaches up to give him a tight hug. He speaks before she can.

“Your kid is lucky to have you, too,” he tells her as they hug. “You’re gonna figure it out, and you’re gonna be a great mom.”

Her brothers have always been supportive but they’re rarely verbally affectionate. They all love each other a lot and they’re all insanely proud of each other, but it’s not something they talk about much. So hearing him say that he believes she can be a good mom breaks some barrier in Tessa that she wasn’t even aware was there. She doesn’t reply - she can’t with how all of her conflicting emotions have combined to overwhelm her - but she squeezes her brother tightly and whispers goodnight once she’s managed to swallow down her emotion. 

Tessa is right about her niece arriving soon. Two days later, she gets to meet her brand new niece the day she’s born. She’s squishy and beautiful and smells amazing. And as she holds her close just above where her own kid is growing, she can’t help but hope that they’ll be friends. It might be the first time she thinks of her child as a potential human being, with their own life and hopes and dreams. It’s a good feeling, even as it’s takes her breath away. 

Still, what she finds hardest in those summer months during her second trimester, are those moments of doubt when she wonders if she made the right decision. They’re fleeting but make her feel a little guilty every single time. It doesn’t help that she still hasn’t felt the baby move and that she’s not really even showing. Yes, she can feel the difference in her body but her doctor is constantly marvelling at the density of her abdominal muscles, and laughing about how hard it is to “feel” the baby beyond all of her muscle. Tessa takes the laughter in the reassuring manner that it’s meant but it’s still hard sometimes to feel like the baby is real. 

“Okay, time to look at this baby,” the ultrasound tech tells her when she’s a little more than 22 weeks along. The doctor joins them in the room and the tech gets started. 

Tessa’s alone for this scan and she’s mostly okay with that. Her mother had a last minute emergency at work and Tessa could hear how crushed she was to miss the appointment. Tessa considered not finding out the sex of the baby until the kid is born but the part of her that likes to have all the information wins out. 

“The heart rate is in optimal range and it looks like the placenta is still in an excellent position. Your fluid levels are great and everything seems to be on target.” The doc tells her. “The fetus is in the perfect position to determine sex if you’re wanting to know.”

“Please,” Tessa answers staring at the display, pretty sure she already knows. 

“It appears you’re having a girl,” Dr. Widdiuk says with a kind smile. 

Tessa just nods in response, not taking her eyes off the screen. She should have waited for her mom. She shouldn’t be alone for this. The feeling of being completely alone overwhelms Tessa in this moment and the tears start to fall, much to her mortification. God she hates crying in public. After a few more moments of staring, Tessa manages to look up at her doctor and say, “Thank you.”

Dr. Widdiuk squeezes Tessa’s hand and says “You’re most welcome. Now we’ll give you a few moments and then you can head to the front desk and set up your next appointment.” 

Tessa nods in agreement. The tech hands her some printouts and Tessa automatically snaps a picture of it with her phone. She sends off texts saying “It’s a Girl!” before she really thinks it through and it’s not until a few minutes later, when she’s climbed into her car, that she realizes that in addition to her family members, who she figures she really should have called with the news, she sent the text to Scott. 

Who she hasn’t really talked to in a little more than two months. 

Shit. 

She gets a call from her mom before she even pulls out of the parking lot but she dismisses the call, letting it go to voice message. She’ll call her when she gets home, after she’s had a chance to process the last hour. 

When Tessa gets home she pulls her calendar off the wall and marks October 25th to November 29th in purple marker to denote what her doctor is calling “the green zone” during which it’s generally considered the optimal time to give birth to her baby. It helps more than she would have thought to have that marked out visually in front of her eyes. 

She has three papers to write in the next three days and her plan is to bang out the rough drafts this afternoon and tonight but exhaustion hits her hard and all she wants is to close her eyes and take a nap. So she sets her alarm for an hour and snuggles into her couch. Her belly popped a tiny bit a little over a week ago, and if she wears something tight you can actually kind of see that she’s pregnant. She’s taken to dragging her fingertips over her small bump and trying to picture her kid. 

Her daughter. 

She’s having a daughter. The thought is amazing and terrifying and makes her ache. She has so many things to teach this little girl. So many lessons she learned too late. She wants so much for her daughter that she can hardly contain it.

“So you’re a girl?” she asks. She hasn’t actually talked to the baby yet. It’s not that she hasn’t wanted to, but it’s just felt a little strange to take that step. Once she starts, though, she doesn’t want to stop. “I bet you’re cute. It’s okay, though, if you’re not. I don’t think I was a very pretty baby, so you may be a little squished and then a little scrawny and that’d be okay. You’ll still be amazing. You are amazing, okay? You’re already amazing. And you’re going to be strong. So strong. And smart and kind. And you are going to be so loved. You already are, okay? You’re already so loved. Your grandma loves you and your aunt Jordan and your uncles will adore you. And I love you. It’s hard sometimes to say that and sometimes I’m so scared. But I do love you.”

She keeps rambling for the next few minutes, like once the floodgates open all she wants to do is talk. She shares all the silly hopes and dreams she has for this kid and she falls asleep calm and content for the first time in months. 

***

She wakes, not to her alarm, but to a knock on her door. She looks at her phone but doesn’t see any other missed calls, just texts from her siblings responding to her announcement. She drags herself to the door and opens it, squinting out into the bright sunshine. 

“Scott.” She’s surprised enough that she forgets to keep her voice neutral. 

“Hey,” he replies. He’s wearing sunglasses and she can’t see his eyes, so she feels adrift not being able to read him. 

“Hi?” Tessa asks. She’s not entirely sure she’s actually awake. For the first two weeks of their limited contact, she figured she just needed to give him a little space. She’d wrecked his plans and she knew he needed time to make new plans and work out where he would go from here. But two weeks of limited contact turned into 10 weeks of no contact and it was nothing short of devastating. She had texted him a few times in the interim, checking in, but after the third time, he called and asked for space and she’d immediately agreed to give it to him. She had no interest in dragging him into this part of her life if he didn’t want to be there. Their skating partnership was in a weird place and may be over completely. Her choices had led to that. She didn’t begrudge him the time to figure out what that meant for him. 

Except it went on long enough that she eventually came to an understanding that it wasn’t just their skating partnership that dissolved but their friendship, too. Without the skating to connect them, he doesn’t seem to have anything tying him to her. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t profoundly hurt by that. 

It’s also why she’s so damn mortified that she had sent him that text this morning. She definitely hadn’t expected him to show up at her front door. 

“You were asleep,” he says, sounding apologetic. 

“I have some papers to write so I was getting up in a second anyway,” she replies. Her alarm tone rings out at that moment and she holds up her phone to show him with a half smile. Her brain is still fuzzy from the short nap and she doesn’t move out of the doorway until he clears his throat. “Oh. Yeah. Come in.”

He follows her inside and she immediately crosses to the sink and fills two glasses with water. When she turns back around, his sunglasses are hanging from his collar and the way he’s looking at her, like she’s got two heads, is completely unnerving. 

“What?” she asks, running her hand through across her mouth. Her hair is up in a messy topknot and she’s wearing a short black cami and low slung pajama pants, but it’s not like he’s never seen her like this. 

Except he hasn’t. 

“You’re doing well?” he asks, ignoring her question and dragging his eyes from her midriff to face. 

“Yes.” She doesn’t know what else to say, so she hands him his glass of water and heads into the living room, settling into the corner of her sofa and pulling her knees up to her chin. She’s hiding. She knows she is, but Scott’s the first person other than her doctor’s office and her mom to see her like this and his scrutiny is freaking her out a little. She doesn’t want or need to see any judgment coming from him. Not about her baby. Not about her body. 

“You look amazing,” he says as he sits on the other side of her sofa. 

“Oh. Thanks,” she replies. 

“I’m glad you texted me,” he tells her after a few beats of awkward silence. 

“That was by accident,” she admits, a little more bluntly than she intended. 

“Ah. That’s fair,” he replies, but he still looks stung. 

Tessa takes a few breaths and centers herself. Her brain is finally coming back online and she’s starting to realize that she has an opportunity in front of her. She has a chance to get and give answers that they both need and she needs to pull it together and stop acting like she did when she was 19 and he abandoned her after her surgery. She tries to remember all the things they had learned about communication and not making assumptions and decides that she needs to give a little first if she wants to get anything out of this conversation. 

“I obviously wanted you to know,” she tells him with a shrug that belies how true the statement is. And she does. She wants him to know everything. She misses him so much. 

“I wanted to know,” he tells her. 

“Then I’m glad I told you.” 

“I’m so sorry, Tessa.” He says it, not in the overwrought, emotional way he used to, but with complete sincerity. 

“Can I ask what happened?” She asks before clarifying, “I know I got pregnant and I didn’t tell you for a little bit and I know that hurt you and probably scared you. But...what happened after that?” She takes another sip of her water and swallows slowly as she waits for his answer. 

“A lot of drinking,” is how he starts, chagrined. 

“Oh.”

“When I left here last time, all I could think was, ‘That skate in Vancouver was our last, and she didn’t even tell me.” He shrugs and looks out the window as he says it, seemingly unable to make eye contact with her, and suddenly she gets it. 

“Wow. Yeah, I can see how that would hurt,” she tells him. She starts to reach out her hand to squeeze his forearm in sympathy, but pulls back when she realizes how long it’s been since they’ve touched. “Why do you think that was our last show, though?”

“You’re pregnant and having a baby, Tessa,” he says as if that explains everything. 

“I am,” she agrees. “But why does that mean I have to be done skating with you? And even if we are done skating, and I’m not actually agreeing that we would have been, why did you not want to talk to me for almost 3 months?” She really does try her best to keep her voice steady but it cracks a little, allowing some of the intense sadness she’s felt at their separation to seep out. 

He looks perplexed for a moment and then says, “First, it’s not that I didn’t want to talk to you, Tessa. I wanted to talk to you every day. Please believe that,” he says earnestly. So very earnestly. “But it was like once I stopped, I didn’t know what to say anymore. I couldn’t see what my role would be in your life from here on out and that was more unsettling than I’d like to admit.”

“I missed you,” she tells him plainly. 

“I missed you, too,” he agrees. This time he’s the one reaching across the void, but instead of pulling back, he takes her hand in his and squeezes. 

They sit there in silence, each allowing the other space to hear and accept what the other is saying. It’s something they learned to do a few years back and they’re not always great at remembering to hold that space for each other, but it feels good here in this moment. 

It’s Tessa that breaks the silence. 

“Did you know that Gordeeva skated until she was almost six months pregnant?” Tessa tells him. Scott cocks his head in curiosity and Tessa continues, “Jumps, throws, twists, all of it.” 

“That doesn’t exactly sound sane,” Scott replies. He’s not entirely wrong. 

“I’m not saying it’s not a little nuts, but she had Daria and she was back out on the ice within a few months. And they won the next Olympics.” Tessa points out, trying to help him see her point. 

“I forgot about that,” he admits. The Gordeeva and Grinkov partnership is legendary in figure skating but that had been over twenty years before and Katia navigating a pregnancy and a baby in between the pair’s set of golds hadn’t entered his mind at all. 

“I’m not saying that we would or could do that,” she admits. “She was younger and Russian and the thought of getting hurled across the ice right now is nothing short of insane.” Tessa takes a deep breath and sighs, trying to bring herself back to her point. “It’s just...I never told you I was giving up skating with you. I can understand why the thought threw you for a loop, I do, But I just wish you would have asked.” Tessa can hear how weary she sounds. 

He turns to look at her and she can see some form of clarity dawn on him. The guilt on his face is almost touchable and she has to resist the urge to run her fingers along ridge of his brow in an attempt to relieve the heaviness there. She’s looking at him intently enough that she doesn’t miss when something in his mind shifts and he gets curious. 

“Have you been skating at all?” he asks. 

“A few times a week,” she replies with some hollowness. It really does suck being on the ice without him. It’s a little boring and it is getting harder to spin (and she kind of hates spins anyway) and her hands are so incredibly empty without his to hold. So she tells him that. “It’s strange without you.”

“It’s fucking weird, right?” he blurts out in commiseration. 

She snorts in response. It’s not that they’ve never skated without each other. They have. But never for this long and never by choice. In the past there were her surgeries or short amounts of time when they were in different cities but now, like then, it never stopped being weird. “It’s fucking weird,” she agrees. “But I can still skate.”

“I screwed up.” He drops his head down and runs his hands through his hair in obvious frustration. 

Tessa almost doesn’t ask her next question, she almost chooses to let it go when she sees how upset he already is. But she needs to know the answer if they have any chance at recovering from all of this. 

“Why did you leave me?” she asks and can’t hide just how hard the last few months have been. It’s been such a long, full day, first with the ultrasound, and now with Scott’s sudden reappearance in her life, so her usual tight control on her emotions fails her and she unsuccessfully tries to stifle a sob that sneaks outs as tears well up and she starts to openly cry. “Damnit.”

“God, Tess,” he tells her as he crosses the length of the couch and pulls her to him. “I’m so sorry.”

“You left me all alone, Scott. I tell you this huge, terrifying thing and you just walked out my door and left.” She can feel anger join her sadness. Anger she hadn’t been aware of until this moment. She lets herself feel it for a few seconds and then tries to breath it out. It’s not productive right now and she doesn’t have time for anything unproductive. 

“I wish I had a better answer for you,” he says. His eyes are closed and he’s shaking his head as if he genuinely can’t fathom the choice he made. “I don’t, though. I think maybe I thought you were abandoning me, which before you say it, I can see that that’s ridiculous.” 

“I’m having a baby, not moving to Australia,” she scoffs, pulling away from him and settling back against the arm of the couch. She pulls her knees back up to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs. She can feel herself slipping back into a defensive position but can’t quite stop herself. Okay so maybe the anger’s still hanging around. 

Scott settles back on his side of the couch and looks at her wistfully. “Kiddo. That’s the thing about you. You don’t do things half-way. You are going to pour everything you have into being the best mom,” he says as if that explains everything. 

“That doesn’t explain anything,” she retorts. “Part of me being a good mom is staying sane and work makes me sane. Skating keeps me sane.”

“Tessa, you were never going to skate forever. We’ve both always known that. Work for you doesn’t have to, and probably won’t mean skating from here on out.”

“Again, Scott. You don’t know that. I love skating with you. I love dancing with you. That’s not something that I want to just give up. Not for years.” She’s completely baffled by how quickly he came to the conclusion that she would just be done with that part of their lives. 

“I can see that now,” he agrees. 

“Do you not want to skate with me? I mean, who knows what’s going to happen to my body over the next few months and years. I’m doing everything I can to stay in the best shape I can, but it may not be enough. I could end up on the other side of this birth completely wrecked.” As an athlete, an elite Olympic athlete at that, the reality of how much her physical being was going to change was a little bit horrifying but also kind of amazing. But maybe for him the idea was just horrifying. 

“I can honestly say I don’t think there’s anything I want more than to keep skating with you,” he tells her with such naked earnestness that she’s taken aback. 

“There are no guarantees. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen,” she admits, her anger deflating and the reality of their circumstances sneaking back in. 

“There have never been any guarantees. But if you want to try, I want to try, too.” He smiles at her fondly and it somehow soothes her heart, while sending her brain into a mild panic.

“I do want to try.” She really does, but she can feel the weight of reality crashing in on her as she continues, “But I don’t really know how it would work. Even if I can get back into show shape, I’m going to have a baby. Like an actual baby. Outside of my body. Who will need things and will cry and babies are hard to travel with and I’ll probably have to have a nanny and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that--” 

“Tessa,” he cuts her off with his hand on her shoulder. 

“Yes.” 

“When are you skating next?” 

That isn’t a question she was anticipating so she blurts out without thinking, “Tomorrow morning at 9:00 am. At the Diamond Club.”

“Can I join you?” he asks as though it’s the most insignificant question. 

She doesn’t hesitate in answer, though. “Please.”

He smiles at her and it’s such an encouraging, peaceful sight. “Let’s just skate tomorrow. We’ll figure out everything else in time.”

Tessa takes her time looking at Scott, searching face for any sign of unease. He looks right back at her and she can see that he’s genuine in his suggestion. She makes note of his use of “we” instead of “you” but lets it go. For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, to C & D for all the help. I appreciate you both so much! 
> 
> Comments are always welcome.


	3. Chapter 3

She gets most of her work done and for the first time in a while she sleeps like the dead. When her alarm goes off the next morning she takes her time stretching, hydrating and getting ready for the day. She remembers halfway through brushing her teeth that she won’t be skating alone and can feel the rush of anticipation skate along her skin giving her goosebumps. 

Tessa isn’t stupid. She knows that everything isn’t magically better. She knows that there’s a part of her that’s going to have a very hard time forgiving Scott for the last 10 weeks. She knows that she’s going to have to be very careful and hold a part of herself back. Fool me once, shame on you, and all that. 

Still, she’s looking forward to skating alongside him today. 

When she gets to the rink, he’s already on the ice, talking to the rink manager who they’ve known for years. Tessa gets ready quickly and Scott glides over to her the second she steps out on the ice. He holds out his hand and she gladly takes it. Any nerves or worry she had leading up to this moment immediately settle and she’s overcome by a tremendous sense of relief. This is good. It’s still so good. 

“What are we looking at here, Kiddo?” Scott asks on their third lap around the rink. “What are your restrictions?”

“Nothing that puts a lot of pressure on my abdomen. We’re probably past the point where most lifts make sense, sorry.”

“No sorries,” he tells her as he squeezes her hand. “If all we could do was skate in circles, I’d do it.”

She doesn’t tell him that she probably could have kept doing more of their lifts up until a few weeks ago. The only point in saying it would be to hurt him and she’s not interested in a morose or tense Scott today. 

“We can do a little more than that,” she tells him as she turns to face him and they move into a dance hold. He leads her through different dance steps and they take turns calling out what old bits of choreography they remember, which frankly isn’t much. She’s sweating and hot in no time but isn’t entirely sure that she wants to take her jacket off now that her baby bump is a little more obvious. 

“The manager said we’ve got the space to ourselves until 10:30,” Scott tells her as he brushes a bead of sweat from her brow. “No one will be watching us.”

Tessa nods and reluctantly takes off her jacket. She has one of her favorite bodysuits on but opted to wear a loose, flowy tank over the top. It won’t hide anything if someone were to look at them long enough, but it should be enough concealment if someone is just passing through. 

“Better?” he asks as she takes his hand again. 

“Much.”

She finds that most of their spins are harder to do than she thought but upright twizzles are still okay. Her balance isn’t bad when her posture is upright, but he has to catch her when they try a camel spin and the look of horror he gives her when they’re upright again makes her laugh. 

“No spins,” he says. “That should make your day.” He winks at her and she laughs lightly. She really does hate spins. They never did get to the point where they consistently had much speed on them and that always frustrated her. 

“Consider my day made,” she says with a happy shrug.

***

Her rink time becomes their rink time. She’s pretty sure he also has time at the ISC, which he likely uses to push himself harder than either of them want her to go, and she’s glad. He brings her dinner on nights when he knows she has a lot of work to do, and is gracious enough to make himself scarce once they’ve eaten. She thinks it’s because it gives him a task to do for her without intruding too much on her time. 

They’re still careful with each other. Tessa holds a lot of herself back from him and she’s pretty sure that he’s doing the same. They’re friendly and he is just as generous and giving as he’s always been, but she doesn’t yet trust that he’s going to stay. And he knows it. 

They do still do a few lifts every time they get time on the ice. Simple ones that remind her of their time as juniors. In this, at least, she trusts him fully. Probably even more than he trusts himself. He will never, ever let her slip out of his hands if he can help it - she knows that in every cell in her body. But she’s careful with her heart. Their friendship has taken a hit and she isn’t entirely sure that it can be fully mended. So she doesn’t try for that. 

Instead she does what she can to make their partnership something new in her mind. Tess has tried her whole life to not be consumed by Scott Moir, but if she’s honest? She’s never been particularly successful. He has been her sun. But slowly, his place as her central focus is shifting. 

Along with pushing through grueling hours finishing her bachelors, Tessa has been doing everything she can to get ready for this baby. If she spent the first half of the pregnancy ignoring everything but the absolute essentials, now she’s all in. She researches car seats and breastfeeding vs. formula vs. a combination. She researches birthing options and parenting techniques. She looks at furniture for the nursery and starts buying clothes and diapers. She talks to the baby all the time now, and even finds herself singing to her. 

She grills her mother about how she and her siblings were raised. She digs deep and asks what her mother is glad she did and what she regrets. Her mother comes over and helps her wash and fold baby clothes and tells her about her own births (the good and the bad) and how easy Kevin and Jordan were as babies and how hard Casey and Tessa were. She tells Tessa stories of how she didn’t sleep for months when Tessa was a baby but how she felt like the best mom in the world when she smiled at her for the first time. Kate encourages her to do her best to keep the baby on a schedule, not because it is the only way to raise a child, but because it makes the most sense for Tessa’s personality, and she tells her to take every piece of advice she reads and hears with a whole pound of salt. “Everything works, and nothing does.”

It’s probably simultaneously the most comforting and terrifying thing she hears. 

Tessa doesn’t announce her pregnancy. She’s carrying her daughter back and low (which is making moving harder, she has to admit) and her commitment to staying in fighting shape has kept her from gaining pregnancy weight in her face. She dresses in a lot of layers and light jackets and, if she’s honest, she just doesn’t go out much. 

“I think it’s time to take a break, Kiddo,” Scott tells her as their time on the ice winds down six weeks out from her due date. They’ve long since abandoned twizzles and lifts and spend most of their time stroking at a moderate pace around the rink. They spend some of their time dancing still, but mostly it’s just the two of them hand in hand going round and round. It should be maddening but she finds it helps keep her sane. 

She knows he doesn’t just mean for this session. The manager knows about her pregnancy now and often looks concerned, but still closes the place down for them. She’s pretty sure Scott is paying a pretty penny for such private ice time and makes a mental note to figure out a way to pay him back. But more than her secret potentially getting out, her pelvis is killing her and skating and running are getting increasingly difficult. 

“I’m not ready, yet. I will go insane,” she answers. 

“Maybe you could take up swimming?” 

“Chlorinated water is horrible,” she counters. She can’t deny that the thought of water taking the pressure off her joints doesn’t sound amazing, but the whole process of swimming seems like a lot of work. Plus there’s the whole thing where Tessa Virtue, Canada’s Sweetheart is pregnant and Canada doesn’t need to know. Swimming suits are not conducive to hiding a pregnancy. 

“You can keep doing Pilates and yoga,” he offers. 

He’s right and she knows it. But it’s hardly just skating that she would miss. 

“Yeah,” is all she says in response. He starts to lead her toward the boards and she shakes her head. “A few more minutes?”

“Sure.”

***

He drives her home and walks her to her door. “You still take Pilates from Kathy, right?” 

“Yep. She’s been great. I guess that’s someone else who knows,” she says as a bit of an afterthought. The more she thinks about it the more she realizes that she really does just have an incredibly respectful community of people around her. She’s so grateful. 

“Do you think she’d be up for making your solo sessions duets?” he asks. 

“Who would be the other person?”

Scott hits her with a bone dry look. “Me.”

“Oh. Um...yeah. If you want to come I’m sure she’d be up for it.”

“Are _you_ up for it?” he asks. 

“Yeah. That’d be great,” she answers and she’s completely sincere. She enjoys her time with Scott and has been dreading cutting back on skating, not in small part because it’s when she gets to spend the most time with him. 

***

Tessa figures out right away that Scott doesn’t need the Pilates sessions when she overhears Kathy ask if he wants to keep his solo sessions with her. 

It’s nice to have him there with her, though, even as her belly makes her balance ridiculous and she is becoming more clumsy by the day. He laughs with her when she tips over and is there with a steadying hand when needed.

She’s down to two projects left for her degree and just wants it done, so she doesn’t see him outside of Pilates much the first two weeks of October. He stops by with dinner most days, but doesn’t always eat it with her and she finds herself missing his steady presence again. So when she’s submitted her final assignment she texts her mom with an emoji filled celebratory message that ends with, “now I’m going to sleep for a week!” and then sends a text to Scott with a similar emoji explosion and an invitation to hang out on her couch and do absolutely nothing for a few hours. 

He comes by with flowers and pasta and chocolate and gives her the longest, most comforting hug and a long kiss to her temple. “I’m so proud of you, Kiddo.”

“I don’t find out my grades for a bit, but I don’t have the energy to care much,” she tells him as she takes the flowers from him and lifts them to her face so she can breathe in their lovely scent. She really loves flowers. 

“You haven’t received anything less than an A this entire time,” he reminds her with an unimpressed look at her modesty. 

Tessa shrugs in response and smirks a little. He’s not wrong. 

“Let’s eat while the food’s still relatively warm,” Scott suggests walking into her kitchen and grabbing plates and silverware. Tessa lets her weary body sink down onto her chair at the dining room table and tries not to wince at how uncomfortable the hard wood is on her sitz bones. She’s going to need an epsom salts bath tonight for sure. 

“I know tonight is meant to be all about doing nothing and relaxing, but I was thinking that I could come over and help you put the nursery furniture together later this week. I have some work to do on the investment property tomorrow, but I don’t have many plans for Thursday,” he tells her. 

“Oh Scott, you don’t need to do that,” she says sincerely. She appreciates how much he’s helping her lately but doesn’t want him to feel like he has to go to those lengths. 

“Do you already have people coming over to do it?” he asks. 

“Oh. No. My mom has offered to come help me at some point but we don’t have any solid plans. I figured she’s gonna sleep in my room for a little while at least so I’ve got some time.”

“Let me help you, Tess,” he says and it’s a question but also a bit of a plea. “I know it will drive you insane if it’s not done by the time she comes.”

He’s not necessarily wrong, but she hasn’t had a chance to prioritize it with school and all so she’s put it in the back of her mind like she has so many other things. 

“I’d like that,” she agrees. 

“Good. Did I show you the picture of the nursery I saw. It seemed like what you were describing.”

Tessa has decided that she wants a woodland theme, but with elephants as well as foxes, bears and owls. She loves the way pinks and purples stand out against foliage and her hope was to find someone to paint some trees and flowers on her walls. She never found the time to look into it, so she figures that she’ll need to let that vision go. 

She had forgotten that she told Scott about that and she gasps when she sees the image he pulls up on his phone. The room is mostly white with a plush rug and light furniture (there’s a wide daybed in addition to the crib and rocker and it gives Tessa some ideas), and on the walls are a forest scene with varying shades of greens and browns, depicting a few different types of trees. It’s beautiful and peaceful and she covets it immediately. 

“It’s beautiful,” she tells him, ‘cause it is. She can picture herself spending hours in that room, walking back and forth as she bounces her baby girl in her arms, or rocking her daughter in the modern looking chair, and even napping on the daybed when her own room seems too far away. 

“Danny’s Tessa was telling me that they used a projector to paint something similar on my niece’s walls. Maybe I can figure that process out and paint the walls before we put the furniture together.”

Tessa can’t get her words of gratitude past her lips so she opts instead to stand, walk around to him and throw her arms around him. She’s so thankful for his interest and his willingness in this moment. She had been so afraid that he was out of her life forever but she hadn’t expected just how willing he’d be to be involved once he did come back. 

Still, as grateful as she is to have her best friend back in her life, she’s still wary. She wonders how long he’ll have to be here before she’s able to forget those long weeks without him. 

***

Midori, Liz, and Chelsea have her over to Chelsea’s house a few days later and shower her with a whole closet full of baby clothes and toys and blankets. She’s so grateful for their support and feels a little bad that she hasn’t been turning to them as much as she maybe should have. None of them blame her, though, and she doesn’t quite know what to do with that. 

It’s a few days after that, as she folds the tons of tiny baby clothes in her living room and Scott’s painting over the projected woodland scape in the nursery, it occurs to her that she hasn’t heard from Alma or Joe, or any of the Moirs really, since their Calgary stop on tour. 

“Scott?” she calls out, unable to keep the panic out of her voice. 

“Yeah?” he says, and she can hear the concern lacing his voice as he pokes his head out of the doorway and looks at her in concern. 

“Does your family hate me?” It’s not the question she actually means to ask, but it’s the one that’s taken over her body. The sense of shame and sadness at the idea rushes up her body like fire and she can’t help the tears that start to flow down her cheeks. Why hadn’t she thought to ask him about where they’ve been this whole time? 

“Oh Tessa, they could never hate you,” he tells her as he pulls her into a hug. “Why would you think that?”

“I just realized that I haven’t talked to them or heard from them in a long time and they must be thinking horrible things for that to happen.” She can’t keep the devastation out of her voice. She understands now that her own father’s abandonment of her family and his utter lack of interest when she had told him, begrudgingly, about her pregnancy, has left a deeper mark than she’s realized and now that she’s aware of the Moir clan’s apparent lack of interest in her pregnancy as well, it throws her for a loop. 

“No Tessa,” he pulls back and brushes the tears from her cheeks. “They think the world of you.”

She keeps her eyes closed and lets him soothe her some but her body is still taught with tension. 

“Look at me, T,” he implores. 

She looks up at him and sees only compassion and patience there. 

“When I left you, my family hounded me for a few weeks, wondering what had happened. I didn’t tell them much of anything, just that I needed some breathing room to figure out what’s next. My mom called and asked me about you when she heard you were cancelling all of your engagements, but I told her I couldn’t talk about you yet and that I needed more time. She didn’t want to give it to me, she wanted to call you and make sure you were okay.”

“Scott, you should have told her what was happening,” Tessa admonishes, which she realizes is ridiculous. 

“Probably, but I could tell you were hiding it and I really did need to work some shit out. I started seeing a therapist and by the time I actually figured some of my own crap out, so much time had passed. And then I got your text and I thought about telling her then, but I kind of forgot,” he admits sheepishly. “I think she was so relieved to hear that I was doing better that she is choosing to let it go for now.”

“So, wait. Alma doesn’t know?” Tessa asks, eyes wide in genuine shock. 

“You hadn’t said anything so I figured you were waiting,” he says with a shrug. 

“Oh my god, Scott. We have to go. Right now!” Tess hops up from the couch and heads into her bedroom to change into a cleaner shirt and make sure her hair is a little more tidy. “How did I forget to tell your mother?”

“T, there’s been a lot going on, she’ll understand,” he attempts to reassure her as he stands in her doorway and watches her as she darts around the room in an attempt to get ready to go drop this information bomb on his mother. 

“She shouldn’t have to understand. I should have thought about her or had you tell her months ago.”

The drive to Ilderton is quick and by the time they pull up to the Moir’s house Tessa is buzzing with nerves. Alma Moir is kind and gentle and one of the most practical women Tessa has ever known. She’s tough and focused but is willing to show her vulnerability. She and Tessa haven’t always seen eye to eye on things, but Tessa has always been able to count on Alma for an honest, but kind, response. This is no different. 

“Well this explains a lot,” Alma says the second she sees Tessa in her doorway. 

“She’s not mine,” Tessa hears Scott mutter as he pulls his mother into a quick hug. Fuck. She hadn’t thought about that. 

“She?” Alma asks, a smile audible in her voice even where it’s muffled by Scott’s shoulder. 

“I’m having a baby girl,” Tessa tells her, a hitch in her voice. 

Alma steps back from Scott and looks Tessa over head to toe. “Oh my dear. You are stunning. I’m so happy for you!” She pulls Tessa into a huge hug and Tessa allows herself to sink into her embrace. She always gives such great hugs.

 

***

Tessa and her mom sit in the doctor’s office a week later and hear that everything is progressing nicely.

“You’re in the green zone now for the next 5 weeks. Baby is head down but not quite engaged. Everything is looking great. Try and enjoy these next few days and weeks baby free and relax as much as you can.” 

“I have a last minute work meeting in Ottawa tomorrow,” Kate asks the doctor, “Should I try to get out of it?”

“I can’t answer that for you, Kate,” the doctor tells her. “I can give you statistics and what might be considered common, which is that a first time mom at Tessa’s level of health and fitness is more likely to go to her due date and maybe a little beyond, but statistics don’t tell a complete story. Right now her cervix is still posterior, long, and closed. I can’t predict that it will stay that way for long, though. You will need to talk it over and decide what you need to do.”

Answers like this are always frustrating, but Tessa gets it. She’s been trying to reassure her mom that she should go and wrap up this last minute meeting, get everything settled at work before the baby comes. Tessa doesn’t feel like she’s going to go into labor anytime soon, hasn’t really had contractions, braxton hicks or otherwise, and honestly, Tessa has felt the fear creeping back in as she’s approached her green zone. She is so ready to meet her baby girl, but she isn’t sure she’s ready for all that entails. Isn’t entirely sure she’ll ever be ready. Still, all the signs point to her being a little more typical when it comes to when she’ll have this baby, and frankly she’s okay with keeping her baby girl inside her a little longer. 

In the end, Kate decides to go, but tells Tessa to call her if anything changes and she’ll get the first flight or train back. Tessa hugs her mother goodbye and assures her she’ll be fine. 

“Scott,” Kate says, and Tessa watches as she pins him with a hard stare. Her mother doesn’t have to say anything more. Scott just nods and kisses Kate’s cheek and then her mom is climbing into a cab which will take her to the train station. 

So of course Tessa starts to feel cramping in her lower back about six hours later. Tessa’s always been a restless sleeper and she has it on good authority that women rarely get good rest late in their third trimester. She tries to rest, drinks glass of water after glass of water, does child’s pose a few times since it feels like her hips need the release. Cat-Cow isn’t helping much either, but she moves through a few other gentle yoga exercises and tries to get her mind to shut off. By five in the morning she’s only dozed off and on through the night, and what was mild cramping in her lower back has become an intense tightening that radiates throughout her abdomen in what she can only assume are contractions, every 15 minutes or so. It’s fascinating to watch as her belly tightens and she can clearly see the outline of her kid. Most of the contractions are merely uncomfortable and she gets caught up looking at her bump, but every once in awhile one will actually hurt, catching her off guard with its intensity. 

She tries to distract herself with baking and decorating a box cake (she may have been spending a bit too much time on Pinterest lately) but that only helps for a few hours, so she picks up the baby name book and starts flipping through it again. This is how Scott finds her half an hour later as he sneaks into her house with plans to make breakfast for her. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks. She can tell by the “bummer” look he has on his face that he was hoping she’d still be asleep when he got there. 

“Nope.”

“You still sure she’s not a Talulah?” he asks, nodding at the book she has clenched in her hands. 

“Pretty sure. She still doesn’t ‘feel’ like a Talulah to me,” she admits, disappointed. She loves the name but from the minute she learned she was having a girl she knew that this baby had a different name. She’s just been having a hard time figuring out what that name is. 

“You can always use it for a middle name,” he encourages. 

“Maybe,” she agrees, then has to close her eyes and clench her teeth as another contraction hits. It’s funny because the contractions are nowhere near the worst pain she’s felt in her life, but she’s so tired and, after being so isolated for the last 4 months, she is out of the practice of hiding her feelings, and so forgets to keep her pain hidden. 

“Tess?” Scott asks when she gasps. 

“I must be dehydrated,” she tells him when the tightening passes. 

“Are you sure?” he asks he asks, eyes wide. 

“Pretty sure,” she reassures him with a small smile. 

She’s not sure at all. 

Two hours later Tess has choked down some food and tried to rest some more as Scott hovers in her periphery. She can see how nervous he is and has to shake her head and glare at him every time he asks her if he can call her mom now. 

It’s mid-afternoon when he tells her that if she won’t let him call her mom than he is going to call his own mom. Tessa doesn’t even try to fight him on it this time. Her contractions are getting closer together but they’re still far enough apart that she knows it’s not time to call the doctor or head into the hospital. She isn’t sure why she’s so reluctant to have Scott call her mom, but she’s adamant in her refusal, and she figures there must be a reason for it. That she’s in denial crosses her mind briefly but she pushes it aside. 

She’s heads into the bathroom to pee while Scott calls Alma and after she’s relieved herself and she’s standing at the sink to wash her hands, she feels a trickle running down her thigh. What the fuck? She runs her fingers through the fluid there and does the gross thing by sniffing it. Doesn’t smell like pee. 

Damn it. 

“Scott,” she calls out as she opens the bathroom door. 

“Yeah?”

“I think my water just broke,” she tells him with tears in her eyes. She should have called her mom. 

“Yea, Mom ,” he says into the phone, “She thinks her water broke.” He pauses for a moment before saying, “I’ll let you know.” 

He hangs up and pulls Tessa into his arms. “Can I take you to the hospital now?”

“I think you’d better,” she says and she can hear the resignation and fear in her own voice. 

***

She’s taken back for an assessment the moment the triage nurse hears that she thinks her water broke. They listen to the baby’s heartbeat and get a sample of the fluid and check her cervix. 

“Baby sounds great, that is definitely amniotic fluid, and you’re dilated to 4 and 80 percent effaced. Given where you were at your appointment yesterday, you’re progressing beautifully.” The nurse is kind and reassuring and but Tessa can’t help but cry. Her mom is supposed to be with her. Hell, her sister is coming into town in two weeks and is supposed to be with her, too. 

“You’re okay, T,” Scott murmurs into her hair. 

She did not expect Scott Moir to be the one to sit with her during labor. That was not in her plans. They’ve been through a lot of shit together, but she never dreamed, never allowed herself to imagine this scenario. 

“I should have called my mom this morning,” Tessa sniffles as she pulls her phone from her purse. 

“She’s at the airport now trying to get on the next plane back. I let her know when your contractions were ten minutes apart and then again when we first got here. She should be here in a few hours,” he tells her sounding apologetic but hopeful that he did the right thing. 

Tessa starts sobbing then, pulling him down into a hug and thanking him. 

They’re taken back to a labor room in the birthing center attached to the hospital half an hour later and Alma shows up about the same time. Tessa smiles at her and welcomes her hug, but chooses to let herself sink into her own little world for a little bit. She’s rambled to Scott a few times about how she likes the idea of a quiet birthing room with minimal talking. She has it written into her birth plan, along with a few other things that her doctor readily agreed to, but she’s been in medical settings enough to know that it all depends on the staff around at the time. The current staff of nurses and techs seem to be on-board with her requests which allows her to relax a little more. 

Before she knows it half an hour has passed with her in the zone and she’s embarrassed to realize that Alma and Scott are both just quietly sitting on the couch. 

“Oh. You guys can go if you need to,” she tells them quietly but immediately regrets it. She doesn’t want to talk or be touched much right now (except when she does want to be touched), but she also doesn’t want to be left alone. That thought brings a little panic that must show on her face because Scott stands up and walks over to her, pulling her face into his hands and kissing her forehead. 

“If you need us to go, we’ll wait in the waiting room,” he tells her when she’s looking at him again. “But I’m good with staying if it helps.”

How this man has grown in the last 5 years. It’s amazing. 

“It’s asking a lot,” she tells him. She’s pretty sure if he doesn’t leave now, she’s not going to be able to let him leave later and she tells him that, “Are you really sure you’re okay to stay here while I’m having the baby?”

“I’ll admit it’s a little terrifying and intimidating, but it’s you Tessa. Whatever you need I’m going to do. I’d like to at least stay until your mom can get here.”

She can see he’s a little wigged out by the idea, but that his willingness is genuine. “Till my mom gets here would be nice.” She can hear the vulnerability in her own voice but feels no shame in it. This is fucking terrifying. 

Scott pulls her into a quick hug just as another contraction hits, this one stronger and sharper than the preceding ones, and she tenses and buries her face in his neck. 

“Breathe,” is all he tells her but it’s enough for her to breathe deeply in and then shakily out. 

She steps out of his embrace once the contraction passes and she gets down into a squat after, hoping that it will help ease the ache in her hips and pelvis. It helps some but not as much as she hoped it would. 

Alma excuses herself to go out into the waiting room and make some phone calls, which includes calling Tessa’s brothers, and doesn’t end up coming back in, which Tessa takes note of during a lull between contractions but doesn’t give any more thought. 

Tessa passes the next two contractions on her own, rocking through them and doing her best to breathe, but finds herself facing Scott and holding onto his forearms as she rocks her way through the next one. 

They spend the next hour like this as she wanders around the room -- she refuses to walk the public halls; it would feel too exposed -- and decides in each moment how she wants to spend the next contraction. She finds early on that lying on her back in the bed is damn near excruciating and hears the nurses muttering something about back labor, so she doesn’t try that again, but lying on her side is okay for a few contractions as she tries to get some physical rest. But mostly she does best in upright and forward leaning positions. 

The nurse helps her take a shower at one point and it feels great until it doesn’t and if she isn’t as careful about securing her gown once that’s over, she can’t be bothered to care much. She has a hard time standing still when they get heart tones but she does her best to accommodate them since she had to beg them to not go with continuous fetal monitoring. Plus, Scott’s audible gasp, and Alma’s tearful smile the first time they heard the baby’s heartbeat brings her a lot of joy. 

The sun is setting when Scott gets a text and smiles. “Your mom is here. She’s just asking for the room number.”

Tessa sobs in relief and she can feel her body release and relax. 

Her mother is poised and smiling when she comes in, immediately kissing Tessa on the cheek and hugging her tight. 

“Oh, Baby. I’m here.”

She only takes a few beats to enjoy the fact that her mother is there and then she lets herself slip back into her oblivious headspace. It’s not until she turns to grab onto Scott that she realizes it’s just her and her mom in the room. 

“Where...” she doesn’t even have to finish. She holds onto her mother’s forearms and rocks her hips back and forth as the contraction surges through her. Once it’s over she looks up at her mom again the question clear in her eyes. 

“He said he’ll be back if you need him but he didn’t want to disturb you to ask,” Kate tells her. “I’ll get him?”

“Please. I didn’t think...I didn’t know I’d need this.”

If she had time to sit down and analyze the intricacies of what she is feeling in that moment she’d be there for weeks. Kate picks up her phone and Tessa leans over the bed and rocks her way through her next contraction. When it’s over she looks up and Scott’s back in the room. He doesn’t say anything, just smiles at her and stands sentinel by the sofa, waiting until she needs him again. 

Half an hour after her mom arrives, Tessa finds herself pushing. The nurse asks her to pant through it and she manages to pull it off through a couple of fast, hard hitting contractions but after that she has no control. She’s leaning back against Scott, her arms wrapped around his and she just bares down in a squat by the side of the bed. 

“Okay,” she hears the nurse say and then hears her yell something out as another contraction and uncontrollable urge to push comes over her. The midwife on duty makes it into the room just in time to squat down between Tessa’s legs and guide the baby out. 

The midwife holds the baby up to Tessa’s now naked chest and Tessa brings her arms around her squirming, wet, baby girl. She feels Scott’s arms secure around her, keeping her and the baby steady as they shuffle back to the bed, but Tessa’s eyes are only for her daughter. 

Everything else passes in a blur. They let her keep her daughter with her as they towel her off and even as Tessa delivers the placenta. Once the mess is cleared and Tessa is settled with a new gown and her baby at her breast, she finally looks up. Her mom is sitting to her right and beyond her Scott is sitting on the couch, a bewildered expression on his face. 

“I’m so glad you were here,” Tessa says to her mother, but can’t help but catch Scott’s eyes and jerk her head to beckon him over. 

“Thank you for being here. I’ll have to thank your mom, too,” she says as she holds her daughter close and presses a kiss into her soft red-blonde hair. 

“I’d like you both to meet Kaela Joy Moira Virtue.”

“That’s a beautiful name,” Kate tells her. “Welcome to the world, Kaela Joy.” She strokes her finger along the sleeping baby’s cheek and smiles as Kaela turns toward her. 

“Tessa,” is all Scott says and she looks up to see that he looks completely wrecked. “I don’t know that I deserve that,” he admits, bewildered. 

“You do,” she insists, but doesn’t look up at him, instead her eyes are latched back on her daughter’s face. “You’re my best friend,” she says completely matter of fact. There’s more to it, they both know this, but now’s not the time. “I think it fits her.”

“It does,” he agrees after a moment’s pause. He leans down and presses a kiss first to Tessa’s messy hair and then to the crown of Kaela’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are love. Thanks to the usual suspects for the cheerleading and help with the clean up. Feel free to come find me on tumblr if that's something that interests you.


	4. Chapter 4

Kate stays with Tessa and Kaela the first few weeks after Tessa brings her daughter home. It’s such a strange feeling knowing that the baby that was inside of her is now out and about in the world, but still so utterly dependant on others -- on _Tessa_ \-- for everything. 

Tessa’s entire world shrinks down to this one little being, and Tessa is finding she enjoys it a lot more than she ever dreamed she would. Maybe it’s just the oxytocin, Kaela’s big, alert eyes, and evolution making her feel like she would give everything and do anything to keep her daughter safe and happy, but it works for her. 

Which isn’t to say it’s not incredibly difficult. It’s so hard. Tessa has never been one to willingly give up sleep and while she may be a bit restless, for the most part she’s good at getting a solid eight hours of sleep a night, sometimes more. So the lack of sleep is difficult. And the constant hunger surprises her. 

She is lucky in that breastfeeding works out and it stops being too painful after the lactation consultant was able to correct her hold so Kaela could latch on properly. It’s an amazing experience that is mesmerizing, comforting and horrifying in turns. But she’s very glad she gets to do it. It just means that Tessa is attached to her kid almost constantly. 

The sleep situation doesn’t get any better once Kate stops being a constant presence. Tessa’s niece is having some health issues and she can feel that Kate is torn between being here for Tessa and Kaela, and spending time with Tessa’s brother and his family. Tessa’s pretty sure she can handle the baby on her own once a few weeks have gone by and if she can’t she’ll call her mom in again. But sooner or later she’s going to have to do it on her own and Kaela is such an easy baby that she’s not too worried. 

Except a week after Kate shifts her focus onto her other grandbaby, Tessa hasn’t showered in two days, she hasn’t slept in about the same amount of time, she’s subsisting off of peanut butter toast, which she’s about to run out of, and Kaela will not stop crying. Her chill baby has turned on her and has been making her grievances known. Tessa has the presence of mind to check her belly to see if it’s rigid, to check her temp to see if she has a fever, and a few other things the internet encourages her to do, but nothing seems to be actually wrong. Her kid is just sad and mad at the world. 

She’s ready to give up and call her mom so she can get a sanity break, when she gets a text from Scott instead. _How’s my buddy?_

Tessa is too frazzled and sleep deprived to give a coherent answer, or to successfully hide the truth so she just answers _uh…_ without really thinking it through. 

Her phone rings a few moments later and without looking at it she answers. 

“You okay there, T?” Scott asks immediately. 

“This is really hard,” is all she can come up with. Kaela’s cries can be heard from where Tessa’s set her down in the portable bassinet that’s currently in her living room. 

“She doesn’t sound like a happy camper,” he says, “How long has she been like this?”

“A few hours,” Tessa admits, shame and frustration both oozing out into her words. 

“I’ll be there in thirty,” he tells her and before she can protest, he hangs up. 

When he lets himself inside twenty-five minutes later he has a bag of food in his hands that he sets on the counter and then he immediately reaches out, pulling Tessa and the baby into a big hug. “Give her here,” he says, voice quiet, but calm and reassuring. 

Tessa hands over the baby and isn’t sure if she’s sad or glad that the baby doesn’t automatically stop crying. 

“I’ve got her, T,” he assures her, already propping the tiny baby against his shoulder and rubbing her back soothingly. “Go take a shower and then go lay down.”

“She’s still crying,” Tessa tells him, completely unable to stop the tears from falling. 

“I’ve got her,” he tells her again. “A crying baby doesn’t freak me out, Tess. Go catch your breath.” 

Tessa nods, leans in and kisses Kaela’s head, “Mama will be right back, baby,” she whispers. And then she turns around and heads into the bathroom, which is a lot harder than she would have expected. 

She zones out in the shower, the warm water soothing and relaxing. She shakes herself awake when it starts to cool and quickly gets clean before shutting off the water, pulling on some underwear and slipping into her robe. Her bed is calling her, but Kaela’s been so upset that she hasn’t eaten much in the last 8 hours and Tessa’s pretty sure she’s gonna explode if she doesn’t empty some of this milk so she stumbles into the living room and settles on the couch, pulling the nursing pillow onto her lap, and makes grabby hands at Scott. Kaela may not have immediate calmed down when he took her, but she’s quieted from screaming at the top of her little lungs, to letting out these soft, sad whimpers that break Tessa’s fucking heart. 

“I need to feed her,” she tells him when he looks a little reluctant to hand her over. 

“Okay, but then you’ll sleep?” The way he’s looking at her, his face full of concern, she can’t help but relent. 

“I’ll try,” she concedes. 

Scott hands her the baby, once again dropping kisses on first Kaela’s and then Tessa’s heads. “Do you need me to step out?” 

“I don’t care if you don’t care,” she admits. The man watched her give birth. Any sense of modesty she might have had with him after years of having his hands, and even sometimes his face, all over her body, is pretty much completely gone after that. 

Thankfully Kaela latches on quickly and eats like she hasn’t eaten in days. “Oh baby. What happened? What made you so sad?” she asks Kaela as she runs her fingers over her kid’s face and head. “You’re okay now, huh. You’re gonna be just fine.”

“I brought stuff for sandwiches, and some of Cara’s cookies. Want me to put something together?” Scott asks as Tessa closes her eyes and leans her head against the couch. 

“I should probably eat,” she agrees. She knows in her head she should be starving but she tends to get nauseated when she’s gone this long without sleep so food doesn’t sound all that great. 

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

Tessa can feel herself drifting off -- Kaela’s a good eater, but she’s on the slower side. Tessa stirs when she hears Scott come back to the room. He sets her food on the table that sits along the back of the sofa where she can easily access the food. He’s cut the sandwich in half and Tessa is so grateful for him in that moment that she almost starts crying again. Almost. 

“Thank you,” she tells him before taking a bite. The first two or three swallows are hard to get down but once the food hits her stomach her hunger takes over and she finishes it off ridiculously quickly. 

“You’re welcome,” he tells her from where he’s settled on the opposite end of the sofa. 

They sit in silence as Kaela finishes her own meal, both chuckling at the baby’s snorts and snuffles. 

When the baby’s finally finished and milk-drunk sleepy, Tessa looks up at Scott and tells him, “This is so hard. I knew it was going to be hard, but I thought I was going to lose it there,” she admits, fighting her sense of shame. 

“Why didn’t you ask for help?”

Tessa is too tired to think through the question so she gives the simplest answer, “I didn’t think I needed it and by the the time I realized I did I was too tired to make good choices.”

“Go get some sleep, Tessa. I’ll take care of her,” Scott tells her. 

“She’s calmed down now and all that crying probably tired her out so I should get at least three hours before she’s hungry again. You don’t need to stay. You already did a lot.” She’s a little horrified at the thought that he might stay and take care of her baby while she _sleeps_ of all things. 

“Tessa.” Her name is accompanied by a look that tells her there’s no way he’ll back down without an actual argument and, frankly, she’s too tired to argue.

“If she wakes up she’ll probably be hungry or need a diaper. Or just be sad like she was before,” Tessa warns. 

“If it’s been more than three hours or it seems like nothing else works, I’ll bring her to you. Other than that, we’ll be fine. You need to sleep, T.”

“I really do,” she admits. 

“Go,” he encourages. “I’ve got her.” He gently takes Kaela from Tessa’s arms and points back to the bedrooms with his head. 

“Thank you,” she tells him as she wraps her arms around him from the side. At this angle his shoulder is all she can easily reach so she absently presses her lips against it, inhales deeply, shivering at his scent mingling with Kaela’s, and then heads back to her room. She’s asleep the second her head hits the pillow. 

***

Tessa wakes with a start, sitting straight up and looking over the edge of the bed at the co-sleeper that’s attached there. She starts to panic when she doesn’t see Kaela there, her heart rate only slowing down when she hears deep murmuring from the living room. 

Scott has her. She’s fine. It takes a few minutes for her breathing to slow and her panic to fully recede but she’s up and moving to the living room before she’s fully calmed down. It may be the first time he’s spent any extended time with her kid, but he’s Scott and she trusts him and she’s genuinely not worried about his competence here. 

She must be moving pretty quietly because Scott doesn’t look up as she approaches the living room and when she hears him talking to her daughter like she’s an adult who might talk back, she can’t help but listen. 

“You’re gonna be just fine, buddy. You got saddled with a heck of a name, which is really cool but I don’t know what your mom was thinking. It’s motivating, though, that’s for sure. I’m going to do what I can to be worthy of the honor. I’m not there yet, but maybe someday, once you’re old enough to know better, I’ll have made up for all the stupid crap I’ve done.”

“You already are,” Tessa interrupts. 

“Hey. You’re up,” he says, a wary smile gracing his lips. She can tell he’s going to pretend like she didn’t hear him. 

So she walks over to him and squeezes herself in the space between him and the arm of the couch and leans her head against his shoulder. She’s still so tired but she’s not as desperate as she was and she no longer feels like every nerve ending in her body is trying to send her contradictory information at once. “You’ve been amazing these last few months,” she tells him as she reaches out to run her thumb over Kaela’s brow. 

“It’s not nearly enough,” he tells her. 

“It’s more than enough for now,” she tells him. “We hit a bump in the road, we’ve hit a few bumps in the road, but the vast majority of the time I’ve known you, you’ve been my constant and no one is more supportive than you when you decide to be.”

“You always see the best in me,” he says. 

“Not always. And I’m not saying that the bump in the road wasn’t scary and that part of me isn’t wary, but all that can fix that is time and both of us showing up for each other over and over again.”

“That’s the plan,” he tells her as he peers down at her. 

“I might even say that overnight babysitting is above and beyond,” she admits. It’s a lot to ask of a business partner, even if he’s also her closest friend. 

“I’m here for you and for this baby girl for as long as you need me.”

He sounds so sincere and sure that Tessa can only nod in response.

They sit there for a bit in silence until Kaela starts rooting against Scott’s arm and lets out a few frustrated little whimpers. Tessa feeds her again and she’s so warm and it’s so quiet that she finds herself dozing against Scott’s shoulder. 

“I think she’s done,” he says softly and Tessa looks down to see her baby’s fallen asleep again. 

“Looks like it,” she agrees. 

“Go get some more sleep,” Scott encourages her. 

Tessa glances at the clock and sees that it’s two in the morning. “You should head home. She seems to be back to normal and what sleep I’ve already gotten was amazing.” She isn’t kidding. She managed to get a solid four hours of sleep, and now with Kaela calm and content again, she wouldn’t be surprised if she gets another four. 

“I’d like to stay, if that’s okay with you,” Scott says. 

“Oh.” Tessa looks up at him a little startled. She blames the sleep deprivation for not seeing it coming. “Yeah. That would be great, honestly,” Tessa replies, allowing herself to answer on instinct. She has no desire to burden anyone with the responsibility of her baby, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t immensely grateful for the help. It’s so much easier to let herself fall into a deeper sleep when she knows that someone else is there to have her back if Kaela’s cries don’t wake her right away. She never, ever wants her daughter to think no one cares or no one is coming for her. Tessa got used to having her mother around, so she didn’t know just how anxious being on her own with a newborn would make her. 

“Good,” he tells her, one of his beautiful, honest smiles lighting up his face. “I’m always happy to have time with her.”

“You don’t have to hold her the whole time,” she reminds him when he takes the baby back. “The bassinet is right there.”

“Will it ruin things for you if I do?” he asks, genuinely curious. 

“Research says it shouldn’t. Newborns are pretty much impossible to spoil,” she admits. “But your arms might get tired.”

“She barely weighs more than five pounds. I think I’ll be okay, but I’ll keep it in mind,” he says with a wink. “Go sleep.”

She does. 

***

After that Tessa only spends a few nights a week on her own with Kaela. Her niece is doing better so her mom tends to spend at least one night a week with Tessa and Kaela, and Scott has slotted himself in on Monday and Wednesday nights. 

They’ve told the media about their “unique partnership” for the better part of a decade, but not even Tessa expected that to extend to overnight diaper changes multiple times a week. 

She appreciates it too much to insist that he stop, though. She probably should, for a whole host of reasons that she has no interest in looking at too closely, but she lets it be. Because honestly, when they said it takes a village to raise a kid, they really weren’t kidding. Her girlfriends try to help every once in a while but none of them are particularly maternal and they’re so insanely busy that their moments together, while precious and seriously appreciated, are fleeting and not terribly frequent. 

“I want to do something, but I’m not sure how you’ll feel about it,” Scott says at five am on a Tuesday morning six weeks after Kaela is born. 

“Hmmm?” Tessa asks as she away from her daughter and up at Scott. 

“The Diamond still hasn’t filled your ice time and I was thinking that you might want to get out of this house for an hour or so.”

“I don’t think...” she starts, but trails off. She really does want to go. It sounds like heaven actually. And then she looks down at her baby and it doesn’t sound so great after all. She’s left her house a few times, mostly to go to her mom’s or her brother’s house. She’s gone to the grocery store a few times when Scott or Kate are around to watch the baby, but really that’s the extent of it. 

“My mom said she’d love to watch her,” Scott tells her. 

Alma’s only seen Kaela once since they’ve come home but she was so sweet with her. The thought of Scott’s mom being the one to watch her daughter sets Tessa at ease. 

“Her next feeding time will be around eight. I think we could make the rink by nine,” she concedes. 

“That’s a yes?” Scott asks, and he sounds so hopeful that she can’t help but smile back. 

“As long as your mom is really okay with it,” Tessa acquiesces.

“Are you kidding? None of her grandbabies live in Ontario. She’ll love the time with this little one,” he replies. 

“Okay,” Tessa answers. She’s nervous about the idea. Not just leaving Kaela, though that’s the biggest concern, but the thought of skating is a little daunting at the moment. She healed quickly after Kaela was born, she’d completely stopped bleeding within the first week, which she’s been assured was pretty quick and she’s been pain free for a while. Her doctor had given her the all clear to resume all normal activities once the pain was gone, but other than her daily at home yoga or Pilates sessions and a few quick jogs around her neighborhood, she hasn’t moved her body all that much. 

Tessa is also acutely aware that she’s chosen to give her body over, at least in part, to her daughter since she decided to continue with the pregnancy. Breastfeeding is only going to prolong that symbiotic relationship and as amazing as she may find it, there is a strangeness to that shared ownership that has changed her relationship with movement and energy expenditure. Over the last few weeks, as Tessa’s sleep has become regular, if a bit interrupted, again, she’s been able to get at least a little perspective on what this change in priority may actually requires from her and, maybe more important, what it doesn’t. Kaela’s need for her, physically, doesn’t mean that Tessa can’t do things that feel good and help her mentally. And skating has been a huge part of that for her. Tessa loves moving her body, she loves working it to exhaustion and sweating and feeling herself pushed to her limits physically. 

So it _is_ hard, a few hours later, when she leaves her baby behind and sits in the passenger seat as Scott drives them to the rink. But she’s excited, too. 

“We can leave anytime you want,” Scott reassures her. 

“I’m more afraid you’re going to have to drag me from the ice,” she jokes. Sort of jokes. Okay, it’s not much of a joke. The anticipation she’s feeling is singing through her veins and she wills them to get there faster. 

Less than half an hour later they’re on the ice, stroking around and around. 

“Does it feel different?” Scott asks after they’ve skated in silence for a full ten minutes. 

“It does,” she says, considering for a moment before continuing, “It’s not in a bad way, though. It’s like I was always aware of my body and muscles and balance, and all of that has shifted some, but I also feel more connected and tuned in.” She isn’t sure she’s explaining it well, but she also isn’t sure she needs to. “Maybe it’s all the yoga, I’ve been doing,” she tells him with a wink. “All that deep breathing and body awareness.” She allows a hint of mockery to color her words, even if they are probably completely true. 

He cocks his head and gives her a skeptical look which has her busing out with laughter. Before this pregnancy yoga wasn’t her favorite form of exercise either but Scott’s complete lack of enthusiasm for the discipline cracks her up. 

“Want to try to make it a little more interesting?” he asks with no expectation in his voice that she’ll answer one way or another. 

“Always,” she agrees, her smile growing as they change their handhold and he leads her through a series of step sequences and warm up exercises that they’ve used for years. 

It feels good. It feels amazing, really. 

He doesn’t quite have to drag her off the ice, she doesn’t have the endurance that she’s used to and after an hour she misses her baby, but she can’t stop smiling even as she drenched in sweat and imagines her hair is a complete mess. They put their skates away and slip on their street shoes. 

“God, you are a beautiful woman, Tessa Virtue. That smile...” Scott tells her. He’s looking at her with bald admiration, which isn’t new. Scott has never been stingy with compliments.

She snorts in response, leans over to kiss his cheek in thanks and then stands up, holding her hand out to him. “My boobs are telling me it’s time to get back to my baby.”

His laugh is loud and echoes through the rink. 

***

Christmas comes a week after Tessa makes it back out onto the ice. She’s gotten so many gifts from the few people who do know about the baby, that she lets everyone in her life know that they can skip Christmas gifts this year. Nobody listens, but she tries. Her niece is fully recovered so the two babies meet for the first time on Christmas Eve. They look a lot alike, both girls take after Kate in so many ways, much to her mother’s delight. Both babies have light hair with just a touch of red and though it’s hard to tell at Kaela’s age, they seem to have a similar mouth. Only time will tell what color their eyes will settle into but Tessa hopes that the cousins will get to know each other and love each other as they grow up. Only time will tell about that as well. 

Tessa is also so delighted that her sister is back in town for the holidays that she almost doesn’t even notice that Scott is gone visiting his brothers in Calgary for ten days. Almost. He had told her he would stay if she needed him to but she rolled her eyes and told him to go. Enjoy his family. Get all the sleep. 

By the time Christmas is over, while she’s not regretting her decision, she definitely misses him. And she think Kaela might, too, which probably should concern her more than it does. Jordan helps out a few nights a week when Kate asks Tessa if she needs the coverage on Mondays and Wednesday still. Unfortunately, Kaela doesn’t settle as well with Jordan as she does with Kate or Scott, and while Jordan is still more helpful than not, it’s a stressful week with less sleep than usual and by the end of it she just wants to go back to their routine. 

And a teeny, tiny part of her is willing to admit she just wants Scott back. 

The fact that he comes straight to her house from the airport doesn’t surprise her much. When he pulls her into a long, tight hug, she notes that he smells like airplane and woodsmoke. “I missed you,” he whispers into her hair, and it’s strange because they don’t really ever say that to each other. 

“I missed you, too,” she tells him and then releases him. 

“How was your Christmas?” he asks as he takes off his winter gear, hanging it on the hooks by the door, and then walks over to the bassinet where Kaela’s fast asleep. 

“It was good! It was so good to see everyone and the girls look so much alike!”

“Kaela’s prettier,” he replies, with a wink. Tessa had sent him some pictures and he had sent her some of his nieces and nephews as well, but as they settle in on the couch, she shows him a few more. 

“My brother will fight you,” Tessa teases. 

“Think I can take him?” he asks. 

“There’s a good chance,” she concedes with a laugh. 

The second Kaela starts to stir, Scott picks her up and holds her close. Tessa watches as he melts into the couch with her daughter on his chest and something inside her settles and sings at the same time. She pushes the feeling back and away and they continue their conversation. 

***

They skate regularly after the new year. Alma recommends a college student whose hours will work well with their ice time and after a trial run where Allie takes care of Kaela while Tessa “takes a nap”, Tessa feels comfortable leaving her daughter with her for a few hours in the mornings. 

Slowly, Tessa joins the land of the living. She grocery shops regularly, she goes shopping with Midori, and to lunch with her mom and sister-in-law. And then she goes to lunch with her mom and sister-in-law and the babies. 

When no one seems to get wind of Kaela’s existence, Tessa gets comfortable and takes her with her to the grocery store, bundled up and strapped to her chest, and she takes her with her on a run to the bank, and to an early dinner at a cafe with Liz. It turns out, with the help of Twitter, all it takes is one person publishing a photo with the caption “Did Tessa Virtue have a BABY?!?” for others to start posting various other photos of her and Kaela out and about. Thankfully, Kaela is never actually visible in any of the photos, but there’s no doubt that Tessa Virtue has a baby with her in a lot of different places. 

She doesn’t give a statement, but she does allow Skate Canada to effectively confirm the news by congratulating her. 

Which leads to rampant speculation on who the father might be. 

It surprises no one that the most popular guess is Scott. It doesn’t help that there’s a photo of him with Kaela strapped to _his_ chest from a grocery run he took Kaela on when Tessa was sick the week before this whole thing blew up. Tessa had been sick and he figured he’d give her a few hours without the baby in ear shot. 

“All you have to do is make a statement saying that you’re happy for me and my baby and the speculation will go away,” Tessa tells him when he refuses to give a public denial. 

“That’s not going to stop them from saying it,” he tells her. Again. 

“It will stop the decent people who know you better than to think that you wouldn’t claim your own kid!” she tells him. 

“I don’t care about any of those people, Tessa.” He says it so quietly and when she looks at him she can see how tired he looks. Like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders and he thinks he’s failing at holding it up. 

“We’ll see if they stop,” she relents. “I’ll keep a low profile and let the dust settle. See if they move on.” Because there is a chance they will. It’s no longer an Olympic year and while Canada may follow figure skating a little more closely than other countries, neither of them have been catering to the press in the last seven months. Scott’s done a few puck drops and a handful of charity drives and he’s gone to schools to speak but all of that has died down since the fall. Tessa has found that, with only a few exceptions, you have to actually work at being a celebrity if you aren’t actively engaged in whatever made you famous in the first place. 

A week later, a major scandal hits the Vancouver film industry and whether or not Tessa has a kid with her old skating partner is cycled out of the news. 

***  
Kaela gets her first moments out on the ice in Ilderton. The club is preparing for a midwinter carnival and Scott has been helping out with wrangling the kids. He invites Tessa to come for family preview night and she gladly accepts. She doesn’t stop smiling all evening as she watches the little ones work so hard to get their movements right. Kaela bounces and babbles to the music, her eyes darting all around the rink, doing her best to take it all in. Tessa wonders if she’ll ever tire of watching her daughter process the wider world around her. 

She’s also highly amused at how Scott’s hair is standing up on end by the end of the night. He takes the whole thing so seriously, and she adores that about him. He’s kind to the kids and infinitely patient, but he lets them know that he expects their best from them. He’s running his hands through his hair the entire show in an attempt to do something with his nervous energy. It’s fascinating to watch. 

Once the show is done, Scott beckons her over to the boards and hands her a bag with her skates. “Put them on,” he encourages her. Cara comes over and offers to hold Kaela while Tessa and Scott do a little bit of skating for the audience that’s left at the rink. Which is most everybody, really. Word spreads fast in small towns and she figures that everyone hoped they’d get a little bit of a show from their hometown heroes. They keep it simple and quick, but it still feels amazing to Tessa. She really does love being on the ice, especially with Scott. And she loves skating for these people who have supported them for so many years. It’s such a privilege.  
After they take their bows and move back toward the boards, Tessa smiles broadly at Kaela. Cara and Alma have her sitting up on the boards facing the rink and she looks hilarious all bundled up with her puffy white snowsuit with attached mittens and red beanie with a floppy pom pom. Tessa can’t help but skate over to her and scoop her up with a laugh. “You are such a marshmallow! You are just my marshmallow baby,” she says as she lifts her up the in the air and spins around. She brings her back down and tucks her face into Kaela’s face, blowing a raspberry on her cheek and pretending to chomp at her neck. “I want to eat you up!” 

She doesn’t even realize that she’s doing all of this on the ice until Scott slowly drifts up to her and puts a hand on her back. She doesn’t know if she’s ever seen him that happy and nervous at the same time. 

“You should take her for a spin,” he tells her as he nods out at the emptied out rink. 

So she does. And it’s amazing.


	5. Chapter 5

In late January, in the short lull between Nationals and Four Continents Tessa gets a call from Marie-France Dubreuil asking if she and Scott might be able to have dinner with her and Patrice while they are in London for a meeting. Tessa says yes before even asking Scott, but asks Marie if they wouldn’t mind having dinner at her place instead of going out. The four of them in one place out in public seems like a mini media storm waiting to happen. Marie agrees, saying she hopes that means she gets to meet Tessa’s baby. 

Marie and Patch have been two of Tessa and Scott’s favorite people in the skating world over the course of their career. They’re passionate but still manage to be even keeled and disciplined. They’re creative and inspiring and so, so encouraging, without ever once seeming fake. Tessa finds their energy extremely soothing and is looking forward to seeing them. Tessa’s also very sure their ability to look back at Sochi somewhat fondly is thanks in large part to Patch’s support. She’ll always be grateful for that. 

Marie pulls Tessa into a hug immediately after Tessa opens the door. It’s comforting and energetic and Tessa lets herself lean in and enjoy it. Once Marie releases her, she trades places with Scott and hugs Patrice, though it’s a little less intense than Marie’s. 

Kate has done Tessa a solid and put a roast and veggies in a crock pot (“Really, Tessa, it’s not complicated”) and dinner is dished out as they all sit around the table. 

“Where is the little one,” Marie asks looking around. 

“She’s still asleep in the bedroom,” Tessa answers. “She’ll be up in a little bit and if she’s not I’ll bring her out anyway.” 

They talk about Marie and Patrice’s coaching, how the school has been evolving and the caliber of teams they have this season. They talk about Scott’s house investment and he tells a funny story about a construction mishap that frankly sounds more terrifying than hilarious to Tessa. They talk about Billie-Rose and Kaela and Tessa’s degree. It isn’t until everyone has finished eating and another round of wine has been poured that the question gets broached .

“Have you been skating at all?” Patrice asks finally. 

“We have ice time every other day for a few hours,” Tessa answers. 

“That seems like a lot of time if you’re not working on anything and not enough time if you are,” Marie responds frankly. 

“Right now it’s just about keeping my sanity,” Tessa admits, though she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been itching for more. 

Before she can continue, Kaela’s cries ring through the baby monitor and Tessa pushes away from the table. “I’ll be right back.”

She changes Kaela’s diaper and once she’s clean and in a fresh sleeper, she takes her out into the living room. At three months old she is more alert than ever. Her little five pound munchkin has doubled in size and has the most knowing eyes. Kaela sees the strangers first and immediately puts her head down on Tessa’s chest and tucks her face in. 

“Aww,” Marie coos. “She’s a shy little thing.”

“She can be,” Scott confirms. At the sound of his voice, Kaela’s head comes up fast, almost catching Tessa’s chin, as she looks around for her friend. “Ah, there’s my buddy,” Scott says to her and she smiles out at him. 

Once she remembers there are others in the room, though, she snuggles back into her mama’s arms and quietly observes. 

“She’s still a little sleepy,” Tessa says, explaining more than excusing the baby’s quiet behavior. Kaela’s a good baby, and she’s become a bit of a babbler lately. It’s pretty adorable and Tessa hopes she warms up to their guests. 

The adults at the table nod in understanding and Marie chooses to pick up the conversation where they’d left off. “So you still want to skate?”

“Before Kaela, the plan was to do a few tours a year around the world until the world got sick of us. I thought I’d model or have some sponsorships on the side, hopefully do some charity work, but now that I have a kid, I’ve figured all of that is behind me and I’ll eventually have to get a real job.” Tessa isn’t sure if she’s ever actually laid it all out like this before. 

“I imagine you two are still pretty good at skating, yes?” Patrice points out. 

“We’re not really in that great of shape, but Tessa’s been amazing when we do get to skate,” Scott replies, a little bit of awe in his voice. 

He tells her this every time they get out on the ice but she still blushes when he gushes about her to their mentors. 

“It’s different, but with a little more work we could be show ready by the May tour,” Tessa says. 

Scott’s head comes up sharp as he looks at her pointedly. They haven’t had this conversation. 

“You’re thinking as soon as the May tour?” he asks. 

“It won’t be easy, and I’m not even sure they’ll take us. I kind of dropped off the face of the planet and had to cancel all those shows and didn’t really tell anyone why...” Tessa hadn’t meant to, but she had virtually cut ties with the skating world since Stars on Ice ended in Vancouver last May. 

“If you can still skate, and I don’t doubt that you can, they will take you,” Marie states. 

She sounds so sure. 

Kaela must have gotten comfortable, because she starts babbling away and bouncing her hands against her mom’s arms. As usual, when she does this, Scott automatically starts up a one-sided -- though he’d insist it was two-sided -- conversation with the baby. 

“There’s the happy baby! Look at you. My buddy’s back,” he tells her holding out his hand for the baby to grab. It’s a joke he makes often when Kaela has to be coaxed back into happy baby mode. 

She’s gotten strong enough that she’s almost able to lever herself out of Tessa’s arms by pulling on his hand. 

“Whoa there,” Scott says on a laugh. “We don’t need you face planting in front of guests.” 

“Will she come to me?” Marie asks. 

“She hasn’t been around strangers very much, but as long as you don’t mind if she cries a little at first, I don’t mind,” Tessa says holding Kaela out so Marie can take her. “This is Auntie Marie, Kaela. She’s pretty much the best!”

Kaela stares up at Marie, a pensive look on her face, and then her eyes catch on Marie’s necklace and she starts taking swipes at it. 

“She likes shiny things like her mama,” Scott says. 

The baby quickly settles in Marie’s arms and the adults continue their conversation. They move to the living room where Marie and Tessa take one couch and Scott and Patch end up on the other. They weave in and out of joint conversations and smaller private ones and at some point Kaela is moved from Marie’s arms to Patrice’s. She takes to him just as well, though she’s probably sad to see the necklace go. Patrice has some buttons on his shirt that catch her interest, though, so she’s content to attempt to grab at them. 

“It’s hard to believe that Billie was ever this small,” Patrice tells them as he looks down into the little girl’s happy face. 

“She’s already grown so much,” Scott says, voice wistful and a little panicked. 

“You get to spend a lot of time with her?” Patrice asks, keeping his eyes on Kaela, not looking at either Tessa or Scott.

“Some,” Scott hedges. 

Tessa chimes in with, “Other than my mom, Scott has been my rock in all of this. I honestly don’t know what kind of parent I’d be without him.” She says it because she’s proud of him and grateful. She says it because it’s true. She says it without thinking it through, without realizing how it sounds. 

“I’m happy to do it,” Scott replies as he scoops Kaela up and holds her close. Tessa sees him sniff and make a face, “I’m going to go change her,” he says as he stands and takes Kaela into the nursery, talking to her the whole way about how stinky she is. 

“I’ll need to feed her when he comes back, if you two don’t mind,” Tessa doesn’t care much who sees her breastfeeding in her own home but she’s too polite not to give warning. 

“Not a problem,” Marie answers. And Patrice just waves his hand in dismissal and raises an eyebrow as if to tell Tessa that she shouldn’t have to worry about it. 

“It doesn’t bother me, but I was wondering if Scott would be willing to go get a drink with me,” Patrice asks. 

“I think he’d love that,” Tessa replies. She knows that Patrice is one of Scott’s heroes. They’ve all become friends over the last ten years but that doesn’t mean that Scott doesn’t still feel a little honored everytime Patch wants to spend time with him. 

“What would I love?” Scott asks as he enters the room with a sweet smelling baby once again. 

The men leave soon after, promising to only be gone an hour or so and Tessa settles in for a long nursing session with her pokey eater. 

“I think you should do it,” Marie says. 

“Do what?” Tessa asks. 

“Call IMG and see if they want you on tour,” Marie says, circling back to their previous conversation. “It’s what you want.”

“There is a a part of me that wants it,” Tessa concedes, “but then I look down at this little one and it gets a little overwhelming.”

“Logistics can be worked out,” Marie replies as if there is no other choice but for it to work out, “If you want them to.”

“She’ll still be so little,” Tessa replies. And she will be. The problem is that Tessa feels like it’s now or never. If she lets go of both competition and show skating for the next year, her career is likely done and she will need to move on to other projects. 

The thing is, she doesn’t feel like she’s done. There have been times over the last year when she was pretty convinced she was done with skating, especially when Scott wasn’t talking to her and she was neck deep in finishing her degree. But every time they’ve been on the ice lately, she’s been pushing them to do more, try harder, be better. And Scott has matched her step for step. 

When she looks down at Kaela, she realizes that she doesn’t see her child’s existence as a reason to abandon the career that she’s loved and fought for for so long. She sees a reason to keep pushing and fighting for it. 

“What if we are never as good as we were? What if we disappoint everyone?” Tessa asks. 

“It’s a possibility, I guess,” Marie concedes but she quirks an eyebrow in obvious doubt. “I don’t see that happening, but I haven’t seen you skate.”

“Would you want to help? If we could make it to Montreal after Worlds, would you be willing to work with us?” she asks. She knows that if they do this, they’re gonna need people like Marie in their corner. Marie, who has always had such a solid read on who they are as performers and people and can help them craft programs that will make them look even better than they are. 

“I would love to,” Marie says with no hesitation. 

The women leave the topic alone for now, knowing that Tessa has other people she needs to talk this through with, and by the time Patrice and Scott return it’s time for all of them to turn in. 

They say goodbye at the door, exchanging hugs and promises to see each other soon that don’t feel empty at all. 

Once their mentors have left, Scott pulls Tessa into a hug and tells her, “We’re gonna need to talk about Stars on Ice.”

“Yeah. Sorry to spring that on you,” she mumbles into his chest, sheepish. 

“I’m not actually all that surprised, you know. I’ve seen how you are on the ice lately,” he tells her as he pulls back and brushes her hair behind her ear. 

His voice sounds light, if a little sleepy, but there’s something heavy and conflicted in his eyes that puts Tessa on edge. 

“You okay?” she asks. 

“Do you mind if I head back to my place tonight? I’ll be back in the morning to take you to the rink,” he tells her. 

“Oh. Yeah, that’s fine,” she replies. She yawns then and realizes that with Kaela asleep, she should really try and get some rest. 

“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning.” He hugs her again, presses a kiss to her forehead, as usual, and then heads out. 

***

IMG is tentatively thrilled to have them back on board. They ask if some of their representatives can come and watch them skate, but the folks in charge know that, even more than a year out from winning silver at an Olympics, Tessa and Scott will sell more tickets. They may not sell out arenas, but there is still enough intrigue and mystery around them, especially after the baby, that they’ll draw in more money. 

They haven’t finished building out any new programs, so when Kurt Browning and another IMG rep show up to the Diamond club on a Wednesday in mid March they decide to bust out Into the Mystic and then Top Hat and Tails. They’ve been working on their conditioning and stamina and while they’re not anywhere near competitive shape, they do feel solidly on track to being ready for tour. 

Tessa feels more present in her body than she ever has before. There are things that are different inside but she’s used to them now. And as usual, Scott is right there with her. Whatever adjustments he’s had to make physically and mentally when it comes to skating with a mother seem to have been made seamlessly. It’s like nothing has changed, yet everything has. 

When they look up at the end of their skate, they can see the grin on the IMG rep’s face and know they’ve sold him on it. So they look to Kurt. 

“It wasn’t bad,” he concedes with a teasing wink. 

They both laugh in relief. The skates had felt great to Tessa, if a little old and stale. She was itching for new material. Which is when Kurt drops a bomb on them. 

“You’re planning to do what?” Scott asks, a confused puppy expression on his face.

Kurt has laid out his vision for a long, experimental piece to close out the show that will be set, primarily, to Supertramp. It sounds bizarre and ridiculous to Tessa (someone is going to skate on stilts?) but it doesn’t put a damper on her enthusiasm. After the Creep number from last year, she isn’t surprised that Stars on Ice is going to lean into the weird. If it means she gets to get out there and skate with Scott and other castmates, she’s on board. 

She can see Scott coming around to acceptance as Kurt winds down the pitch. Scott loves creativity and pushing boundaries, but he tends to get frustrated with anything he sees as fake or over the top just for the sake of being over the top. Once he knows Kurt’s vision is genuine, Tessa can see him give in. 

“There is another thing we need to discuss,” Tessa broaches as the conversation about what they will skate to winds down. 

“You have a baby,” Kurt states, assuming correctly that Kaela is the topic Tessa needs to discuss. 

“I do,” Tessa admits. Tessa hasn’t been working much the last year and so her finances aren’t where she had assumed they’d be this time last year. She’s not necessarily hurting for cash, she’s made good investments over the years, but paying for a nanny who will have to travel with them for a month isn’t going to be cheap. 

The IMG representative takes over, “We’re willing to pay for your nanny’s time worked, but right now that’s all we can swing. It’s not an Olympic year, and while there might be some draw from it being the 25th anniversary, the budget is still going to be tight this year.” 

“So I’ll need to be able to cover travel, hotel, food?” Tessa asks. It’s pretty much what she expected.

“And any additional fees the nanny needs for working any non-skating related activity.”

It’s honestly better than she feared but not as good as she hoped. But like Marie said, they’ll figure it out. The IMG rep has another meeting in town so he leaves them with his card and a promise to answer any other concerns that come up. 

Kurt takes them to lunch. 

“I don’t know how it’s possible, but you two looked even more in sync out there today. You’ve always been impossible to look away from but this was something else.”

“I’m not sure what it is,” Tessa hedges. But Kurt’s not wrong. They feel even more tethered together now than they ever have before. Their ability to feel where the other is going and what they’re thinking has increased just enough to make it all look and feel more seamless than ever. Still every time Tessa stops to wonder why, she pulls back from analyzing it and decides to let it go. She’s a little afraid that looking at it too, too closely will ruin it. 

“I think that taking care of a baby together has contributed,” Scott says, a little more honestly than she expects. 

“Together?” Kurt asks. 

“Scott has been amazing,” is all Tessa will admit, her voice switching from her engaged and curious, friendly tone, to her more aloof media persona. 

Kurt takes the hint and they move on to other topics. 

 

***

Tessa never expected that doing yoga or Pilates with her baby by her side would end up being so amusing. She has seen videos and pictures of mom and baby yoga sessions but never really gave them much thought. It’s cute, sure, but doesn’t seem very practical for someone at her level of fitness. 

When she’s very little, it starts with Kaela off to the side in her bouncy seat, happily staring at the toys on the amusement bar as her arms wave aimlessly in front her while Tessa flows from one move to another. But as Kaela grows and became more interactive, Tessa finds she enjoys integrating her kid into her movement. So she does planks while Kaela stares up at her, wide-eyed and chattering a mile a minute. Tessa talks back, of course, which often sends Kaela into fits of riotous laughter that fill her Mama’s heart right up. 

“You are a ridiculous little girl, did you know that?” Tessa asks as she lowers herself so she and Kaela are nose to nose. Kaela reaches up to pat Tessa’s face, so Tessa pushes up and away from her with an exaggerated gasp, sending the baby into more laughter. Tessa moves into a side plank for a minute, and just listens as Kaela talks to her, occasionally talking back with acknowledgements. “Oh! Did you have a good day with grandma? Did she take you to the store?” She lowers herself back to a standard plank, moves into downward dog, primarily so she can blow a raspberry on Kaela’s stomach, and then switches to a side plank on her other side. 

These are some of her favorite moments. The exercise may not be as rigorous or productive physically as the sessions she has with Kathy, or her skating time with Scott, but her daughter seems to find these sessions hysterical and there is nothing more motivating for Tessa than her baby girl’s laughter, so while she hopes the extra movement and toning throughout the day is adding to her strength and stamina, Tessa’s pretty sure she’d be doing all of this without the prospect of tour looming over her. 

 

***  
Getting ready for tour is a welcome challenge. The hardest part is finding a nanny that Tessa feels comfortable traveling with. She’s been stressed about it for weeks when Scott manages to coax her to come to Ilderton and hang out with him at the rink while he helps Carol out with some baby ice dancers. He encourages her to bring Kaela with her, telling her that there were enough of people at the rink today who had been itching to hold the baby that she’d be well looked after while Tessa encourages one of Carol’s shyest and youngest ice dance couples. 

As soon as she gets into the lobby Cara is rushing to her and holding her arms out for Kaela. 

“Come here you freaking adorable child!” Cara coos as Tessa hands the baby over. Even though Kaela’s only seen Cara a handful of times she goes right to her and starts chattering away as her hands fly around, smacking Scott’s cousin on the shoulders. Once she’s sure Kaela is settled with Cara, Tessa heads into the rink itself smiling when she sees Scott and Carol on the ice, talking with two super tiny dancers. 

Tessa can pinpoint the moment the little girl recognizes her, as her eyes get huge and she looks back and forth between the real life Tessa in front of her and the huge picture of Tessa and Scott on the banner that hangs at the back of the rink. While Scott is a pretty steady presence at the club these days, Tessa’s visits are few and far enough between that there are a lot of kids that have never seen her in person. 

The little girl just stands perfectly still on the ice and Tessa’s heart breaks for her when her chin starts trembling and tears escape from her eyes. 

“Hello,” Tessa says as she walks quickly but carefully out onto the ice in her street shoes. She’s learned that sometimes it’s best to pretend like the tears aren’t happening and just act like it’s any other introduction. “I’m Tessa.”

She reaches out to shake the girl’s hand and has to stifle a sympathetic laugh when the girl sobs in response. Tessa takes pity on the girl and pulls her into what she hopes is a comforting hug. “You’re okay. I’m just a person,” Tessa tells the girl, keeping her voice low and soothing. 

“This is Jenna,” Scott tells her with a fond smile. “As you can see, you’re her favorite.”

“You _are_ my favorite,” the little girl sobs into Tessa’s shirt. 

“Thank you so much! It’s a privilege to be your favorite,” Tessa tells the girl. 

The boy, who has been standing next to Scott with a worried look on his face this whole time, clears his throat and thrusts his hand out to Tessa. “I’m Nick.”

The boy has a serious, guarded look on his face that reminds Tessa a little bit of herself at their age. She can feel herself falling a little in love with these two already. “It’s nice to meet you, Nick,” Tessa responds as she shakes his hand while rubbing Jenna’s back with her left. “Why don’t we go sit on the bench for a minute? Get to know each other a little better.”

They have a lovely chat as Jenna calms and Nick loosens up a bit. After a few minutes of talking about the younger pair’s hopes and dreams, Tessa and Scott take them back out onto the ice to help them work on their edges and stability. It’s fun and there’s a lot of laughing and Tessa is so glad she came. 

When the lesson is up, Tessa and Scott head back out to the lobby and find Cara still holding a sleepy, but calm Kaela. As they get closer they can see that Cara has Kaela facing the trophy case and is pointing to the pictures of them that sit inside. 

“Your mama was so pretty but had super old-fashioned taste in hair. Look at all of her buns. It’s so silly,” Cara tells the baby as she gently rocks her side to side. 

“I need to find another Cara,” Tessa says as she looks at her friend and daughter. Cara’s so good with her and Tessa’s known her forever and as relaxing as sitting in on Jenna and Nick’s practice has been, all of the stress from before comes rushing back. 

“Or...” Scott starts as he looks pointedly at his cousin. 

“I hear you’re looking for someone to take care of this little one during tour,” Cara says as she kisses Kaela’s head. “I volunteer as tribute.”

“What?” Tessa says a little startled. It never crossed her mind that Cara would consider going with them on tour and essentially being Kaela’s nanny. “No. I can’t ask you to do that!”

“You didn’t ask, I’m volunteering,” Cara tells her with a smile. 

It takes a few days but eventually Cara and Scott are able to convince Tessa that a) Cara really did want to do this, and b) it wouldn’t be a burden or hardship for her. 

It takes a few more days for Tessa to fall completely in love with the idea of having her friend on tour with her. It is such a welcome relief.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay on this! Let me know what you think, yeah?

It’s exhausting. 

Tour is completely and utterly exhausting. They adore the programs that they’ve worked out with Marie-France and her friend and collaborator Sam. Both of them have a solid read on how Tessa and Scott move together and, maybe more importantly, aren’t willing to let them get complacent. Which Tessa is so grateful for. She knows that others would have written them off and let them coast on what innate skills they still have, but neither of them are interested in coasting. For them, skating means striving and growing and evolving. There is nothing fun or engaging about giving in to the current. They may not be in competition, but that doesn’t mean they want to rest on their laurels. 

Cara has been such a godsend and is so good with Kaela, but Tessa has no interest in abdicating her responsibilities as a mom when she’s not in rehearsals or performing. All told Tessa knows she’s gotten lucky. Kaela’s actually been taking to tour life with aplomb. She’s great for Cara, she’s gotten used to being held by various castmates and crew, and laughs and babbles all the time. But when Kaela has a bad night, which happens two nights in a row, right in the middle of tour, Tessa stays up with her. 

She’s able to (mostly) hide how tired she is that first day after getting so little sleep. Kaela is happy as a clam during the day and Tessa’s nothing if not really good at gritting her teeth and pushing through in a way that conceals just how tired she is. After the second morning, though, is a different story. 

“Let me stay with you two tonight,” Scott practically begs when Tessa comes down with Kaela, the deepest, darkest bags under her eyes. Tessa has the baby strapped to her chest and Kaela is obviously exhausted because her usually active and playful child has snuggled down into Tessa’s chest and fallen back to sleep. Tessa’s wondering if she’s going through a major growth spurt. 

“I feel like I should argue, but I don’t want to,” Tessa admits. “I will say that it’s probably a good idea that one of us sleeps.”

“And tonight that one of us is going to be you,” Scott tells her. Kaela usually only wakes once in the night now to eat, but the last three nights her appetite has been insane and no amount of avocado or pureed yams seem to tamp down her desire to breastfeed. Which means there’s a good chance her child is upset about something else and looking for comfort. 

“Okay,” Tessa concedes. 

She’s able to muscle through their performances and somehow makes it through the meet and greet that night without face planting into their table or saying anything too ridiculous to a fan. When they get back to her room, Cara slips out quietly, only taking a second to raise a curious eyebrow at Scott before heading to her own room. Tessa barely manages to change and take off her make-up before crawling into the bed furthest from the door. She falls asleep before Scott has finished changing.

She stirs to the sound of Kaela crying but immediately relaxes when she hears Scott get up from the other bed and start to soothe her. As soon as he starts talking, Kaela’s cries calm and she lets out a few shuddering sighs. 

“I’ve missed this time with you, buddy,” Scott tells Kaela and Tessa’s heart clenches. “Have you missed it, too?” he asks and he sounds so wistful. 

Oh. It had never occured to Tessa that either of them would miss their late night chats, but of course they do. Kaela’s world has expanded by leaps and bounds over the last two weeks and Tessa feels like an idiot for not realizing that she might be missing her other primary caregiver. 

Which is what Scott is. Tessa’s too tired to do anything but acknowledge that thought, and then fall back asleep to the sound of Scott singing “Here Comes the Sun,” to her daughter. 

But in the morning, when Tessa wakes up to Scott half reclined in a sea of pillows on the other bed, talking quietly to Kaela as the baby lays on his chest sucking her thumb and looking up at him in rapt attention Tessa can’t help but speak up. 

“I don’t think I realized how much she missed her time with you,” Tessa tells him, voice still thick with sleep. “You’re so important to her.”

Kaela turns her head when she hears her Mama’s voice but doesn’t move to leave Scott’s embrace.

“She’s important to me, too,” he murmurs as he lifts the baby’s hand to his lips. He sounds so sad that Tessa’s heart breaks a little. 

Tessa continues to watch them, marveling at how well they fit together. She smiles when Kaela pushes up on his chest and pulls herself up to get close to his face. 

“Whatchya doing Buddy?” Scott asks as Kaela starts to pat his cheeks and then sort of face plants with a open mouthed, slobbery kiss on his chin. He quickly pulls her up with a laugh. “Aww. Sweet girl. Don’t hurt yourself.” He shifts her so she’s sitting on his chest, holding her steady as she bounces to a rhythm neither adult can hear. 

It’s then Tessa notes that Kaela’s wearing a deep red onesie she’s never seen before. She snorts when she reads the words on the chest: _Party. My Crib. 2 a.m._ Scott must have gotten it for Kaela at some point. Tessa wonders how long he’s had it. 

“She loves you so much,” she murmurs. The thought is terrifying and magical all at once and Tessa has never felt so conflicted. 

Scott looks up at her then and smiles. It’s a little wary and a little sad and a little disbelieving. It looks like he wants to say something but he just closes his eyes and inhales deeply with a shrug. 

Tessa is so completely thrown off by how sad he is that she moves to the other bed, slipping in to lay next to them. She takes his hand in hers and squeezes it in comfort. She knows she doesn’t have the full picture, but Scott is obviously conflicted and she can’t not try and soothe him. 

“I’m sorry,” Tessa says even as she’s working out what she’s sorry for. 

Scott turns to look at her, curiosity written all over his face. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t see how much you missed her. How much she missed you,” Tessa continues. 

“I see her every day,” he points out like that should be enough, but Tessa can clearly hear that it’s not. 

“It’s different,” Tessa insists because she knows it is. There’s something completely different about middle of the night, sleep deprived, time with her baby, when it’s dark and the rest of the world is quiet. It can be frustrating and even maddening, especially the rare moments that Kaela is inconsolable or even just cranky, but that time adds to their bond. It never occurred to her that Scott might have forged similar bonds with Kaela in the wee small hours as well.

“I do miss her,” he admits, looking back at Kaela who has settled back down. She’s got one hand in her mouth and the other clutched in Scott’s shirt. She stares back at Tessa but still hasn’t made any moves to indicate that she’s ready for her mama to take her. 

“Maybe you can do this a few more nights for the rest of the tour,” she says. She hopes it’s the right option. Despite all the evidence in front of her, it’s hard to not feel like she’s asking too much. 

“I’d like that,” he replies immediately. 

“Or you could just stay with us every night until we go home,” Tessa proposes, though she regrets it almost immediately. Not because she doesn't want him to. She does, for so many reasons, a handful of which she can’t look at too closely or she might go nuts. She backtracks immediately after the words have left her mouth. “That’s too much to ask, isn’t it. Sorry. A few nights would be amazing,” she exhales on a weary sigh. 

“Yes,” he replies and then stops. “I mean, no. Or yes. Yes to staying with you the rest of tour, if that doesn’t cramp your style too much. And, no, it’s not too much,” he says it all in a rush, running one of his hands through his hair in nervous frustration. The other hand stays where it is, gently rubbing the baby’s back in a lulling motion. 

It’s like he’s worried that she’s going take away her offer if he doesn’t answer fast enough and it breaks Tessa’s heart. As she shifts to wrap her arm around him, squeezing lightly in gratitude and apology, she wonders how the fuck she missed this. 

After that night, Scott starts giving his designated hotel rooms to the Cara and bunks with Tessa and Kaela. It has the added benefit of saving Tessa a little bit of money, but mostly it seems to be comforting for all three of them. Kaela sleeps better after that and Tessa’s actually pretty sure that Scott’s sleeping more now that he’s in their room than he was when he had a room to himself. 

Tessa isn’t stupid. She can see the looks the other cast members give them when they come down to dinner as a unit, or when Scott takes Kaela out onto the ice and twirls her around as she laughs from deep in her belly. She knows what it looks like. 

She’s not even sure they’re wrong. That’s the other thing she’s discovering. 

They are a family. Kaela loves Scott. Scott loves Kaela, adores her, really. 

And Scott loves Tessa. It’s dawning on her that he’s maybe even _in_ love with her.

It’s with this thought in her head, early one morning during a rest day, when Kaela’s asleep and Scott’s out for a run that Tessa sees Jordan is online and Facetimes her on a whim. She’s both relieved and nervous when her sister answers. 

They spend a few minutes making small talk, Tessa keeping her voice low so as not to wake the baby, though she knows she’ll have to wake her up soon or Jordan will pout. Before that, though, there are things that Tessa needs to bounce off her sister and it will be easier for Tessa if she can focus on what she needs to ask. 

“I can tell you didn’t just call to hear how the weather is,” Jordan tells her once they’ve gotten the usual catch-up conversation out of the way. 

“There’s been a lot going on lately,” Tessa admits, letting her head hang down for a few minutes, both to enjoy the stretch and to avoid eye contact with her sister. 

“Tell me what’s got you wound up,” Jordan asks as she moves her computer to a different area of the living room and settles into her couch, then adjusts the computer so the camera is positioned correctly. 

Tessa takes a deep breath and then asks, “Do you think Scott’s in love with me?”

Jordan laughs and smiles fondly at Tessa. Tessa feels the flush creep up to her cheeks. “If I had to make a guess, I’d say that there’s a good chance Scott is in love with you, yes,” Jordan answers. 

“How do you know?” Tessa asks and she can hear how perplexed and awed she sounds. 

“I don’t know, Tessa. Not for sure. I’ve never actually asked him,” Jordan admits. “But the little bit of time I saw him when I was back home, when I saw him with you and I saw him with your baby and I saw all three of you together, he was so present. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you unless he was looking at her.”

“He’s always been attentive. At least when we’re in the same space,” Tessa counters. “I know he loves Kaela. I know that. And I know he loves me, he’s told me a million times. But we’ve never...It hasn’t been like that with us.” Tessa blows out a harsh breath and closes her eyes again. 

“It has been like that, Tessa,” Jordan admonishes. “It’s just never been like that at the same time. For two people who have always been in each others’ pockets, who have the most amazing timing on the ice, you’ve never seemed to sync up your pining.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Tessa tells her sister. Except she knows exactly what Jordan means. 

“Yes you do. But it doesn’t matter, Tess,” Jordan tells her, voice serious and a little stern. “What you guys had or didn’t have in the past doesn’t matter.”

They sit in silence for a few moments and Tessa’s about to give up and wake Kaela up just to end this frustrating conversation that she herself started when Jordan starts talking again. 

“Are you in love with him?” Jordan asks. Her voice is softer now. 

Tessa swallows and damnit here come the tears. “Yeah. Yeah I am.”

“Then you should tell him that,” Jordan tells her. 

“What if,” Tessa starts, then stops to swallow back how overwhelmed she feels. “What if he loves her and he loves me but he doesn’t want me like that?” That’s the fear. That she’s in all the way, that she wants everything, and he only wants to be her best friend. 

It’s an amazing thing to have Scott Moir for a best friend. He’s only admitted it in the last year or so and it’s still a fantastic feeling, but Tessa isn’t sure it’s enough anymore. 

“That would suck,” Jordan admits, plainly. There is empathy in her voice that squeezes Tessa’s heart. “But I don’t believe you’ll be disappointed if you ask him.”

The baby starts to stir then and Tessa’s thrilled to have the distraction. She reaches into the play pen and picks up her sleepy baby. She makes quick work of changing her, Jordan chatting in the background about her project at work and a vacation to Sydney she’s planning on taking with her boyfriend in the next month. 

“Say hi to Auntie Jordie, Kaela,” Tessa says, voice bright in the way it only gets when she’s talking to her kid. 

“Well hello there, Kaela Joy!” Jordan says, a huge smile taking over her face. “Aren’t you just the cutest little bug!” 

Kaela is used to these video chats so she immediately starts waving her hands around and babbling. Tessa holds onto her squirmy baby and watches in genuine love and happiness as Jordan carries on a conversation with her daughter. It goes on for a few moments, Kaela babbling something at her Auntie and Jordan pretending like she has a clue what the baby is telling her when Kaela starts pushing her face against Tessa’s chest. 

“Looks like someone’s hungry,” Jordan laughs. 

“She’s always hungry lately,” Tessa agrees, adjusting her shirt to give her daughter access to her boobs. The three of them go quiet for a few minutes and Tessa is so glad that they can still have these moments while so many thousands of miles apart. 

“No matter what happens, I’ll be here for you. You know that, right?” Jordan says quietly and Tessa knows it’s probably time for her to get going. 

“I do know,” Tessa replies. 

“Be brave, sister,” Jordan tells her, just as the door to Tessa’s hotel room opens. 

Scott walks in, sweaty and flushed from his run and Tessa can’t help but look at him and smile. He comes over and kisses first Tessa’s forehead and then the back of Kaela’s head since she’s tucked into her mother’s chest. 

“Hey Jordan! How’s all that sunshine treating you?” he asks when he notices who is on the computer screen. 

“The sunshine is amazing as always,” Jordan answers. “They’re calling for rain tomorrow, though.”

“You poor thing,” he teases back. 

The two of them talk for a few more minutes before Jordan has to sign off and as conflicted as Tessa feels, she can’t help but hope for more moments like this. 

***

As much as Tessa tries to put the question of her and Scott out of her mind until the end of tour, she can’t help but wonder all the time. It’s as she’s sitting in the stands chatting with Joannie while Scott, once again, dances across the ice with Kaela in his arms, that she gets another piece of interesting, relevant information. 

“He looks like he’s sleeping better,” Joannie tells her with a small smile. 

“I don’t know how he could get better sleep now that he’s sleeping in the same room as a baby, but he does look better,” Tessa agrees. 

“He seems to prefer an occasionally crying baby to sleeping on the floor,” Joannie floats. 

“Why would he have been sleeping on the floor?” And how would Joannie know he was sleeping on a floor? To say Tessa’s a little confused by the direction of this conversation is an understatement. She’s now fully focused on Joannie and whatever it is she is and isn’t saying. 

“I caught him outside your room one night. He fell asleep sitting in the hall leaning against the wall next to your door. It didn’t seem like it was the first time it had happened,” Joannie tells her. 

“What?” Tessa asks sharply. 

“He was a little embarrassed and I probably shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but he...cares a lot about the two of you and he said something about having heard crying, even though he was two floors away and he came down to check. You both were fine but he felt better knowing for sure.” Joannie shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee, keeping her eyes glued to Scott and a laughing Kaela. 

“Why didn’t he just knock?” Tessa asks, not really expecting Joannie to have the answer. 

“I can’t say for sure, but I think he was trying to respect your boundaries. You were pretty adamant on being the mom and not needing Cara, or anyone else, to take her in the night. I think he respected that too much to try and impose his own worries on you, until it was obviously affecting you negatively. That’s my guess anyway. He’s not very talkative at 3:00 AM.”

Tessa’s so distracted that she doesn’t even ask her friend what _she_ had been doing in the hallway that late at night. 

 

With this new information, Tessa lets herself relax and feel whatever it is that she’s feeling when it comes to Scott. Probably for the first time in her life.When she watches him snuggle her daughter, or when he’s pulling a stupid, but harmless prank on Chiddy, or when he’s got his serious and slightly impatient face on when Jeff takes too long to tell a story that’s not actually that funny, she wonders if she’s looking at someone who is simply her best friend, or if she’s looking at someone who she wants to share all of herself with, including sex and romance and passion.

When he hugs her good morning and good night, when he kisses her shoulder or her cheek or forehead, she catalogues all the various sensations. The comfort and contentment are familiar friends, but under that surface are joy and electricity and sometimes heat. When he kisses her cheek she finds she wants to turn and kiss his mouth. When her hands slide down his arms and back while they’re dancing, she wants to keep them there, she wants to have permission to explore his magnificent body off the ice, too. 

She pays more attention to his actions and his words. When he tells her he loves her, she listens carefully to hear every little thing he might mean by that. When he pulls her and Kaela into a group hug at dinner just because he wants to, or when he’s excited to introduce Kaela to his nieces, or when she catches him looking at her in awe after a good skate, Tessa’s confidence in his love for her matching her own grows and grows. 

And she is in love with him. Probably has been for most of her life, but this is different. It’s deeper than what she’s ever felt before. She’s so sure of his commitment to her, even if he’s never said the word _forever_. 

It hasn’t escaped her notice that Scott hasn’t slept with anyone in the last year. He’s never been good at hiding when he gets laid (has never been good at hiding anything, really) and Tessa just adds that information to her growing pile of evidence that Scott Moir has probably committed himself to her without her even knowing it. 

***

 

It’s the afternoon before the last show and everyone is in a bit of a tizzy. There’s a lot of excited energy and everyone’s expecting a good show. Tessa is ready to head home and sort out her life and while she’ll miss the cast and touring (but will be thrilled if she never hears another Supertramp song), she can’t help but be ready to start the next phase of her life. She and Scott are ready to build new programs, to push themselves to be better skaters and entertainers. Now that she’s back in public life Tessa has been approached by different partners who want to give her endorsement deals, and even a jewelry design company that has asked if she’d be interested in collaborating with them. 

She’s sitting in the stands watching Joannie practice -- her friend has expressed that this is likely to be one of her last tours -- which motivates Tessa to watch her every chance she gets, when she feels someone approaching and looks up to see Kurt settle into the seat beside her. They sit in silence for a while before Kurt starts talking. 

“Have you ever met Katia Gordeeva?” 

“Once,” Tessa answers, turning to look at him in curiosity. It’s kind of a weird question to ask. 

“You remind me of her,” he says. “Sort of,” he quickly qualifies. “You two have a similar grit and determination, but how you show it is very different.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Tessa replies. 

“Good, it’s meant as one,” Kurt says with a smile. “When she and Surgei came back to competition after Daria, a lot of people thought they were nuts.”

So that’s where he’s going with this. Tessa stays still and waits for him to continue. 

“I’ve been watching you and Scott and it’s amazing to me how your programs, which were already very good to begin with, have grown and evolved in the last month. You two never let them get stale or tired. When you practice on the ice you still push each other and want to be the best you can be. It’s obvious.” 

“Anything else would be pointless,” she counters. 

“Not everyone thinks that way,” Kurt tells her honestly. “It takes special people to get to the level that you’re at and still want to do better.”

Tessa nods in response, still unsure of where he’s going with it. 

“There are a lot of people who will tell you that you can’t compete again, and I may be reading it wrong and you may not want to go that route,” he pauses and looks back at her, “It would be an incredibly hard path with a lot of sacrifices. But when I look at you, and I look at you and Scott, I can’t help but think you’re not done yet.”

“Wow.” It’s all she can really think to say. Every once in a while the thought of getting back into competition crosses her mind, but she always pushes it away. She doesn’t think it’s impossible, but she does always come to the conclusion that it’s improbable. Still, even though the circumstances are wildly different to Katia’s in the early 1990s, hearing that Kurt thinks she could do it, that he sees what it takes to pull it off in her like he saw it in Katia, makes the whole concept a little less improbable. 

With that bomb dropped, Kurt stands, squeezes her shoulder, and then walks away.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for taking this ride with me! Your enjoyment and encouragement have been so lovely. This is the conclusion of the story I set up in the summary, but I'll be back with the next story in their lives in a few weeks. Feel free to subscribe to the Heart's at the Wheel series or to my author page to get a notice when that starts posting.
> 
> Let me know what you think, yeah?

Tessa carries a sleeping Kaela into the house while Scott wrangles their luggage. 

He stops in the entryway and doesn’t take off his jacket and Tessa looks up it him in confusion before she realizes he’s planning on going home. 

“I should head home,” he admits when he looks down at her. 

“You should stay. It’s late,” she replies, reaching up to cup his cheek. It’s not even actually that late, but it’s been a long month and all she wants to do is fall into bed. With him. To feel him next to her (or wrapped around her) and let the rise and fall of his chest lull her to sleep until Kaela wakes or the sun comes up. 

He looks like he’s about to protest, and maybe he has plans that she’s disrupting, but she leans up, presses a soft, chaste kiss against his dry lips and then leads him back to her room. He doesn’t say anything as he strips down to a t-shirt and boxer-briefs and as soon as she’s changed out of her travel clothes and into her cami and sleep shorts they crawl into bed. Tessa sighs in contentment when Scott curls himself around her back and buries his face in her neck. 

“I love you,” she murmurs to him and she receives a kiss to the back of her neck in response. For today it’s enough. 

***  
She wakes to the shrill and desperate cries of her baby. Kaela hasn’t sounded this upset in a long time and Tessa is immediately awake once the noise penetrates. Scott is already out of bed and heading into Kaela’s room. He has her in his arms before Tessa has time to blink and he’s doing his best to soothe her. 

“Oh buddy, you’re okay,” he coos as he cradles the baby to his chest while also looking her up and down to see if anything’s physically wrong. Tessa can tell they’re on the same page; this is likely a night terror or something emotional and nothing is physically wrong with Kaela, but they both feel the need to check. 

“Mama’s here, sweetie,” Tessa whispers to her from behind. “Dad...” she sucks in a breath and then course corrects, “We’ve both got you, baby.” 

Hearing her mama’s voice, Kaela twists in Scott’s arms and reaches out for Tessa, completely unaware of the slip up Tessa makes. Tessa pulls her baby close, then reaches out to grab Scott’s hand and leads them back to her room. Once they’re all settled in the bed she brings Kaela to her breast, more for comfort than for nourishment, and the only sound in the quiet of the bedroom is Kaela’s snuffling and occasional shuddering sighs. 

“I’m sorry about that,” Tessa starts when she’s sure Kaela’s settled. She keeps her eyes on her daughter’s sweet face, unsure if she can look at Scott right now. She alternates between running her fingers down Kaela’s cheek and the bridge of her nose. It soothes and grounds Tessa as much as it does the baby. 

“I think I’m only sorry that it’s not true,” Scott replies, his voice low and husky and Tessa is hit in the gut at how sad and weary he sounds. 

“Is it not true?” she asks. 

“Isn’t that why you stopped?” Scott counters. 

“I think I mostly stopped because we hadn’t talked about it and it’s honestly not something I can put on you,” Tessa says looking up at him. 

“I would like to know what you’re thinking,” he says after a moment’s pause. They may be talking about Scott’s role in Kaela’s life, but ultimately, Tessa is her mother and Scott’s role can only be as wide or as narrow as Tessa dictates. 

“I forget sometimes. That she’s not yours. That you have no obligation to be here at night, that you should be out living your life and not stuck here with me and my baby,” she admits. “You’ve been so good with her and so present and I just...forget.” 

“There are very few things I want as much as I want to be Kaela’s dad,” Scott tells her with raw honesty. “Only one thing, really.”

“What’s that?” Tessa asks, knowing the answer. Hoping she knows it, anyway. 

“To be able to love you. Proudly, loudly, in all the ways that I already love you and a few extras,” Scott says and Tessa smiles at him, tears in her eyes. 

“That’s what I want, too,” Tessa admits, her voice full of hope and wonder. Is this really happening? 

“I love you so much, Tessa,” Scott confesses. “I want you so much. All the time, in every way I can get you.”

“I love you, too. So much,” Tessa admits. “I’ve wanted it for so long. But it’s still so much to ask.”

“Like I said, it’s her and us. That’s my world. I like that you two are my world,” he tells her as he shifts to swipe a tear from the corner of Kaela’s eye. “It has been the privilege of my life to get to live it out with you and that only got more intense and amazing when she came into the picture. Whether or not we end up together, and I do want that so much, you both have got me for the long run.”

“Together would be better,” Tessa agrees and sniffs as happy tears fall down her face. She looks down to see that Kaela has passed out again and she stands to put her in the playpen that sits in the corner of her room. 

When she returns to the bed, she starts to climb in on her side but Scott grasps her by her arms and lifts her into his lap. She shifts so she’s facing him and they both lift their hands to cradle the other’s face. Tessa stares into his eyes and can’t help but smile in delight at the joy and love she finds there. They lean in at the same time and Tessa sighs into his mouth as they kiss each other thoroughly. It’s deep and wet and feels like coming home. Tessa breaks away with a delighted laugh. 

“I love you,” she tells him again. They tell each other those words all the time but it feels so different now. It’s everything. 

“God, I love you, too, T,” Scott pulls her closer to him and slots his face into the crook of her neck. “I don’t know that I’ve ever been as happy as I am right now.”

“Same,” she replies, running her fingers through his hair and breathing him in. 

“Allie doesn’t start again until next week,” Tessa tells him, a little chagrined. Neither of them have slept much in the last month and Kaela will be up in a few hours again. They need to sleep. 

“If Kate doesn’t want grandma time with Kaela, I’m pretty sure my mom would love to spend a few hours with her,” Scott replies. 

Tessa’s in agreement that they’re going to need some baby free time in the next day to do more than make declarations of love and make out. There are so many things they need to work out between them. Things that need to be settled and talked out. And then maybe they can have a little time to enjoy each other’s bodies. Tessa is definitely looking forward to that. 

“I’ll call my mom first thing in the morning,” Tessa says before laying back and pulling him down into a kiss. It’s slow and languid and a little dirty and Tessa sighs when he pulls back before smashing his face into the pillow beside her head and groaning in resignation. 

“We need to sleep,” he reminds her. 

“Okay,” she agrees. And for the first time, instead of turning away from him, they shift so that Tessa can rest her head against his chest. She presses a kiss to his chest above his heart, and he peppers a few small kisses into her hair but soon their exhaustion catches up with them and they fall into a deep sleep. 

***

Kate is more than willing to spend time with her granddaughter the next morning. When Tessa drops Kaela off at her mom’s it takes Kate a little less than a moment to sense Tessa’s excitement and anxiety. 

“Why don’t I keep her till dinnertime,” Kate offers. Tessa has come prepared with a couple of bags of breastmilk and Kate already has some baby food, so Tessa agrees, thanks her mother profusely and makes the drive back to her house and back to Scott. 

The plan is to eat and talk. Anything else can wait until they’ve cleared the air and ensured they’re both on the same page here in the light of day. 

Except, the second she walks in the doorway and sees him standing at the counter assembling sandwiches, all she wants to do is jump him. 

So that’s what she does. There are perks to being athletic and having a partner who can anticipate the shifts in your body. All she does is say his name, breathless and wanting, and he’s already turned from the counter, empty handed, and then he’s catching her. 

She wraps herself around him in a tight, full body hug and holds on for dear life. They stay like that, breathing each other in, wrapped up in each other for a few moments before Tessa feels his lips drag along the hollow of her neck. She gasps in response and clutches him to her by his hair, holding him there as he kisses and licks at her throat. 

As amazing as it feels, they’re still fully clothed and upright and Tessa needs so much more, so she digs her heels into his backside and pulls his head up so he’s looking at her. “Bedroom,” is all she says and he’s already moving. 

When they reach their destination, he taps twice on her thigh and she takes the direction, unhooking her legs from around him and slowly sliding down the length of his body. The friction feels amazing and fuck if she doesn’t get a huge thrill out of how hard he feels through his jeans. Once her feet are solidly back on the ground, she makes quick work of his t-shirt, stopping only to kiss him, once, then twice, before she’s undoing his jeans and shoving them and his boxer-briefs down. 

Tessa has spent way too many hours of her life wondering what Scott’s dick looks like and truth be told, she’s not disappointed. She reaches out and drags three fingers over the top of the shaft and Scott lets out a throaty groan that sends shivers through Tessa. So she does it again. 

“Oh shit, Tessa,” he breathes out. 

She looks up at him and sees his eyes are wide and dark as anything, so she takes him in her hand and starts stroking. 

“Nope,” he says, grasping her wrist and bringing it up to his lips. “If you keep going this is gonna get messy very fast and you still have all your clothes on.”

Part of her wants to keep going anyway, wants to watch him come undone with a few flicks of her wrist, but then he’s pulling her shirt over her head as he steps out of his jeans, and his mouth is back on her neck and she decides they can explore his way for a while. She reaches back and unclasps her bra as he slides his hands down the back of her yoga pants and squeezes her ass before pushing her bottoms off her hips as he sinks to kneel in front of her. He once again taps her right thigh, so she lifts that foot as he pulls the tight fabric away, then they repeat on the other side. She looks down and sees him there, kneeling at her feet, looking up at her like he has no place in the world that he’d rather be and she’s overwhelmed with love and gratitude for him. She runs her hand through his hair, affection and contentment coloring her touch, and then she gasps when he buries his face between her thighs, his hands coming up to grip her ass and hold her to him. 

“Fuck,” she drags out because there are no other words. He uses his whole face to consume her, lips and teeth and tongue, and she lets out little whimpers every time his nose brushes her clit. It surprises her not at all how good he is at this. He’s so focused and thorough and when he brings his fingers into the mix she has to clutch at his head to keep from falling over as her orgasm hits her before she even knows it’s coming. 

When he finally pulls his face away, Tessa falls back onto her bed, aftershocks still jolting though her body. Scott climbs up next to her and drops kisses along her shoulders and jaw as he stretches out alongside her. 

“That was so good,” she tells him as she finally opens her eyes again and looks over at him. “So good.” Her brain is completely offline and she’s breathing heavy but she feels so loose and relaxed and just very, very happy. 

“Anytime,” he replies and he’s got this look of wonder on his face as if it’s just starting to sink in that he’s telling the truth. 

They get to do this again. They get to keep doing this right now, even. After so many years of only being able to go right to the edge of this amazing freedom, but never actually taste it with each other, they’re here, fucking each other. Making love to each other. Having sex. All of those, together, in turns, however they decide they want it going forward. 

Tessa leans over, now that she has use of her limbs again, and kisses him for all she’s worth. She consumes him and he devours her right back. It’s give and take and take and give and they say so much with tongues and teeth and lips. They breathe life and hope and love into each gasp and sigh. 

Scott’s pulls away and reaches over her and into her nightstand to pull out a few condoms and Tessa leans up and scrapes her teeth along the underside of his forearm, causing him to jerk and laugh. She kisses the spot in apology and smiles at how he shivers in response. There is no hesitation then as Tessa takes the condom from him and sheethes his cock with it. She gets in a few strokes, still completely stoked that she has this access to him now, but before she can keep going Scott has her wrists in his hands and has placed her hands at the sides of her head before letting go and pinning her with a look that tells her she can explore more later. 

And then there he is. Seated right at her entrance, as he looks down at her and waits for permission. 

“Please,” is all she has to say before he’s slowly and steadily pushing inside her and damnit if they both don’t have silly tears in their eyes. 

He’s kissing her again as he pumps his hips against her, a little tentative at first, but then the rhythm builds and he doesn’t take his eyes off her face, reading every gasp and sigh and moan and adjusting accordingly. 

Tessa has enjoyed sex pretty much since she started having it. It’s usually been fun and she’s pretty easy to get off so she’s almost always liked doing it. But it’s never been like this. Not ever even close. Her heart is so full of love for this man and their connection, that famed and sometimes burdensome connection, seems to open up and give her a direct line into his soul and him into hers. 

“Tessa,” he groans out as his hips start to stutter and his control starts to falter and he comes, face tucked into her shoulder, body curled around hers and something about how he says her name, so undone and raw, combined with the friction he continues to make with his hips, has her falling right after him. 

No, it’s never been like this. 

“I knew we’d be good at this,” he tells her when they’ve both caught their breath and are left lying naked in bed facing each other. 

“We are insanely good at it,” she agrees as she absentmindedly plays with his fingers. She shivers as the sweat begins to evaporate from her body, taking a lot of her heat with it, so Scott pulls her into him, rubbing his hands up and down her arms like he’s done a million times. 

“We should shower and then we should definitely eat,” he rumbles into her ear and she can’t help but shiver again. 

She hums in agreement and then squeals as he lifts her off he bed and carries her into the bathroom. She shoos him out the door quickly while she pees first, which he rolls his eyes at but acquiesces, then calls him back in as she’s turning the shower taps on. The water is intensely hot but years of cold rinks and aching muscles have toughened their skin. The heat feels amazing and they take turns standing in the spray. 

As much as Tessa would love to continue their lovemaking in the shower, they stay focused on getting clean. They dry off quickly, changing into comfy clothes, and then head back into the kitchen to finish making and eating the sandwiches Scott had started an hour ago. Tessa is starving so she wolfs down her meal, rolling her eyes when Scott raises his eyebrows at her. 

When their meals are done they head into the living room and, instead of Tessa settling into her corner of the couch and Scott settling in his, Tessa sinks down into Scott’s lap and rests her head on his shoulder. 

“So just to be clear, we’re an actual couple now, right?” Scott asks. 

“Yes, if that’s still what you want,” Tessa confirms. 

“I love you and want you. It’s what I want,” he assures her. 

“Are we talking you moving in or...”

“I would like to, if that’s something you think we’re ready for,” Scott admits, rubbing his fingers up and down her arms. 

“Maybe we can try it and then reevaluate in a month. Keep your apartment in town for now,” Tessa suggests. 

“I don’t think it will be necessary, but if you’ll feel better about it, I can keep my place for now,” Scott agrees. “But I don’t think I’ll need an escape hatch.”

“Okay. That’s really good to hear,” Tessa admits, turning to kiss the hollow of his neck. God she loves everything about him right now. 

“So about the other thing,” Scott starts. 

“I feel like there are a million ‘other things’ so you’re going to have to be specific,“ Tessa replies looking up at him. 

“The dad thing,” he says, voice hitching on the word ‘dad’. 

“Ah. Yes. That other thing,” Tessa says, sitting up a little straighter. 

“I think we should hold off on calling me her dad until we’re a little more settled,” he says tentatively. “I love her like I imagine a father loves their kid. I can’t imagine loving any biological kids I may have in the future more than I love that little girl. And I hope that someday in the future, she will call me her dad. But we need to be sure.” 

“She’s so lucky. We’re so lucky to be loved by you,” Tessa tells him. “Just let me know when you’re ready and we’ll talk it through again, okay?”

“What other items on that list of ‘other things’ would you like to cross off?” Scott asks, nuzzling into her hair. 

“For now the only other thing we need to start to lock down is what skating looks like for us moving forward,” Tessa answers. She leans back so her head is resting on the back of the couch and sighs deeply. 

“I figured we’d tour a few times a year, bring Kaela with, show her the world,” he answers. 

It sounds like a hectic life, but a good one. But it also sounds safe. 

“Did Kurt talk to you much during tour?” Tessa asks. If Kurt broached the topic of returning to competition with Scott then at least Scott would be somewhat prepared. But of course he hadn’t. 

“Not anymore than usual,” Scott replies, looking down at her with curiosity.

“He brought up Katia Gordeeva,” she tells him as she threads their fingers together and then unthreads them. “It was actually very sweet. He told me that I had the same grit as her and I’m not sure I’ve ever been that flattered.”

“She definitely has some grit,” Scott concedes, his brows lowering in consideration. 

“He thinks we could get back to competition shape. Thinks winning gold is a possibility for us in 2018.” 

“Oh,” he says, sounding genuinely taken aback by the thought. “What do you think?”

“It would be one of the hardest things we ever do, but I would like to at least consider it. Competition has been off the table in my mind for so long, but I can’t help but wonder why. We still have our skills and my body didn’t take nearly the hit that I expected, and I miss it. I really miss it.”

He sits with that information for a bit and she lets him. She knows as he cards his fingers through her hair and stares off over her shoulder he’s turning over every possibility that comes to mind, every pro and con he can come up with, visualizing what he can of what a comeback would look like. 

“We’d have to move to Montreal. I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone but Marie and Patch,” is what he finally says. “We should skate for them and Romain, see if they think it’s worth considering.”

“We’d have to do everything differently, or else what’s the point,” she agrees. 

“It would be eight hour days, six days a week,” Scott adds, reaching up to touch her cheek, “That’s a lot of time to be away from Kaela.”

“I know Marie and Patch have a playroom at the rink that Billie used to use sometimes. Maybe they’d let us use it. Have whoever we hire to watch her keep her there when we’re at the rink. We could see her at breaks.” Tessa knows that this time with her baby is precious, but she also knows she was never going to be a full time stay at home mom. By the time they would actually need to move to Montreal, Kaela will be over a year old and most likely weaned. It wouldn’t be that different than if she worked any other job she’d be interested in taking on. 

“I think we should focus on tour for the rest of this year, work on our stamina, make sure it’s a commitment that we really want to take on.” Scott says. 

“Sounds like an excellent plan,” Tessa agrees, dropping a kiss on his lips and humming. She feels like the last fifteen hours have been a complete dream, and as they deepen the kiss and cling to each other, she’s so happy knowing that she doesn’t have to figure out her future without him. 

 

***

_**Montreal - September 30, 2016** _

They hadn’t anticipated just how nervous they would be. Cause right now? They’re really freaking nervous. So much has changed in the last two years and as Tessa looks over to where there’s a small stand of bleachers and blows out a breath and sees her oblivious daughter in her grandma’s arms she’s a little overwhelmed by just how different it feels. 

“We got this,” Scott murmurs into her hair as he squeezes her tight. Tessa refocuses on him and breathes in deep. “One step at a time.”

She nods against his shoulder but stays quiet. The announcer is about to call them to the ice so they need to wrap it up, but there is a very real part of her that isn’t ready to leave this bubble. She makes a mental note to talk to their mental prep coach about how to keep that bubble once they get back on the ice. It used to be so easy. 

Scott squeezes tight, signally that he’s going to let go and she squeezes back in agreement. It’s time. 

They pull out of the hug and look each other right in the eye. 

“Ready?” he asks, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. 

“Yup,” she answers, even though she knows he can see the apprehension in her face. “You?”

“Yep,” he replies with a nervous smile. “Let’s do this.”

“Together?”

“Together,” he affirms with a nod.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to C & D for your encouragement, beta reads, and for all the hand holding. It's insanely appreciated. 
> 
> Come find me on tumblr at the same name.


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